“Take the winter scene. It’s only fifteen rubles!
The frame alone is worth more than that.”
From the final version of The Portrait
N. V. GOGOL, established as a writer well before Lermontov was out of his teens, is regarded in Russia as second in literary importance only to Pushkin. If the latter’s writings are marked by conciseness, economy, and clarity, Gogol’s style is noted for expansiveness, ambiguity, and verbal play amounting to true virtuosity. Selections from Gogol’s oeuvre are placed here after Lermontov’s because they mark a transition in the Russian aesthetic awareness which began to favor prose over poetry as an exclusive vehicle for all literary needs. The most prominent of these was the utilitarian aspect of literature, as a national art form serving the masses—a notion to which Gogol himself contributed greatly. Within this context poetry fared quite poorly, as its multiple intricacies and nuances could be only understood by an exclusive club of like-minded, well educated individuals. But Gogol might have inaugurated the reign of the dominance of prose over poetry for personal reasons, as his first published work, a super-romantic narrative poem, was an utter fiasco which he decided to burn. Thereafter Gogol did not publish a single poem.
Gogol’s fame began with his very first collection of stories, Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1831-2) which, together with its sequel Mirgorod (1835), constituted a series of tales united by a Ukrainian setting, descriptions of local color and nature. The stories expressed both the pathos of heroism and supernatural terror stemming from native beliefs and myths, and the bathos of folksy humor, banality, silliness and sheer stupidity permeating provincial life. Cossacks, Gypsies, seminarians and local folk are described selling and buying pretzels, kerchiefs, bushels of wheat and all kinds of wares at country fairs and relishing their food to the point of choking on their dumplings. But drowned maidens, witches, devils and other “colossal creations of the popular imagination,” as Gogol put it, also make their appearance. Comprising a grotesque gallery of creatures and characters with radish-shaped heads, overgrown bellies, magnetic eyes—all inextricably bound to the countryside, at once coarsely prosaic, enchanted and mystical, and strung together by the narration of the bee-keeper Pan’ko—Evenings and Mirgorod tales were more a product of Gogol’s oxymoronic mind with its taste for the carnavalesque than the “slice-of-life” episodes many contemporary critics saw in them. Yet the series was received in the capital as a picture-postcard-perfect reflection of Ukrainian folk life and assured for Gogol instant recognition. Since Evenings marked Gogol’s first leap into the fantastic realm, we have chosen to excerpt one of its stories, Vji, to represent this period. Vyi provides all the ingredients that would normally startle a city-dweller: the local color and customs of the provinces, the flight of an unsuspecting protagonist mounted on a witch’s back over this enchanted countryside (an image used to great effect a century later by M. A. Bulgakov in his exquisite fantasy-novel, Master and Margarita), the horror of witnessing an old hag turn into that witch, and also of meeting a truly horrific ruler of the netherworld—Vyi—to whose magnetic powers the protagonist succumbs. The fact that Petersburg dwellers of Gogol’s time (and, regrettably, subsequent commentators on Gogol) failed to notice that Vyi—despite the author’s claim to the contrary in his footnote—did not have a Ukrainian folk genesis, but German, never became an issue: Gogol’s rise to a leading place in Russian prose was assured.
The surprise which affected Russian readers of Gogol’s early fiction only increased when the author changed the locale of his stories to St. Petersburg in Arabesques (1835).1 A word must be said about a fantasy-making device found in Arabesques which made possible Gogol’s absurd fusion of the Real and the Other. The term arabesque has been used in diverse fields, but Gogol paid special attention to its function in art and framing. In the book’s first essay, “Sculpture, Painting, and Music,” the art of painting, when personified, “reaches out from behind the multitude of antique gilded frames,” and is caught in the whirlwind of “long galleries, flashing by, as if in a fog.” It is important to note that in European art, arabesque frames allowed parts of the represented world (usually some form of vegetation like branches of trees or curling vines) to protrude or “grow beyond” the confines of the painting. This function of protruding beyond the ordinary frame of things is at the core of Gogol’s poetics in Arabesques. Images of grapevines reaching into the heavens, together with other vegetation, breaking the simple geometry of buildings, the sense of boundlessness in his depictions of genius (all found in his essays), moonlight unable to be contained by the frame of the window in The Portrait, as well as the notion of the portrait stepping out of its frame, fogs causing the narrative to take abrupt shifts in a related story, The Nose—all these were but a fraction of the imaging with which the author bombarded his readers, as if afraid of stasis or a moment’s calm contemplation.
The frames unable to contain the pictures they hold unite Gogol’s fictional and non-fictional prose into a whole which may properly be called nothing else but Arabesques. From these we offer Nevsky Prospect and the Diary of a Madman. The former was especially valued by Pushkin for its remarkable symmetry and perhaps better than any other tale shows Gogol to be the true progenitor of the Petersburg myth. At first depicted in the daylight, the city when night falls is veiled with disorienting mists and fogs, which confuse perceptions and cause the protagonists to make mistakes with fatal consequences. Nothing is to be trusted on Nevsky Prospect for it “deceives at all hours < … > especially when night descends on it < … > and when the Devil himself ignites the street lamps for the purpose of showing everything not in its true guise.” It is this central Petersburg avenue which is frequented by the protagonist of the Diary of a Madman, Poprishchin. Quite apart from its general relevance for the insanity theme in Russian literature, this work had a unique meaning within Arabesques, relative to the issue primarily concerning Gogol at the time—the ability to touch the Sublime. Gogol created a persona one might call the “lofty narrator,” who alternately appears in the book as a historian or an expert on architecture, but who in the first essay (mentioned above) poses as an art-loving friar, raising successive toasts to Sculpture, Painting, and Music “in his peaceful cell.” This detail has a bearing on the overall symmetry of Arabesques, thematically relating to the final tale, The Diary of a Madman, in one episode of which Poprishchin’s head is shaved in prison—an act he mistakenly believes to signify a consecration into a monastic order by force, something he really dreads.
It is also noteworthy that Poprishchin (whose name derives its meaning in Russian from a furuncle or boil) is the only protagonist in Arabesques who is a narrator in his own right, thus implicitly serving as an alter-ego to the lofty monk-narrator. The parallel is further reinforced by the fact that the monk-narrator proper ends his essay by choosing music as the supreme form of art—in his early drafts Gogol planned to make Poprishchin a musician. Some references to music still remain in the Diary. The daughter of Poprishchin’s superior sings like a canary, a friend of Prprishchin’s plays the trombone beautifully, and in the tale’s final passage there is “a chord resounding in the mist”. But there are no clues available as to what made Gogol to switch the narrator from a musician to a clerk. Given Gogol’s facetious alter-ego motif in the Diary of the Madman however, there is reason to suspect that the author wished to hide the true source of his inspiration, namely E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novel, Lebensansichten des Katers Murr nebst fragmentarischer Biographie des Kapellmeisters Johannes Kreisler in zufaelligen Makulaturblaettern. (The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr, along with A Fragmentary Biography of the Conductor Johannes Kreisler as recorded on Random Galley-proofs). Hoffman’s protagonist, the tomcat Murr, has supposedly written his wild autobiography on the backs of the pages of a manuscript which he has clawed to shreds. Interspersed with Murr’s horrid poetry and musings on the superiority of cats to humans is the biography of Johannes Kreisler, Murr’s owner. Kreisler is a composer who, although suffering bouts of paranoia, is a true musical genius. His story proceeds in reverse order to Murr’s, creating a fragmentary, schizophrenic text, with the resultant effect not unlike Gogol’s. The Diary of a Madman, which Gogol originally titled The Diary of the Mad Musician and then Tatters from the Diary of the Madman, features a correspondence between two pampered lapdogs. Finally, it must be noted that Gogol, just as Hoffmann, felt unappreciated as a child, admitted to hearing the Devil’s and other voices in his head, and it is no accident that he was under the influence of Hoffmann’s amazing creative output.
Gogol’s adaptation of nightmarish themes from The Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann has been noted by a host of commentators. The reason that the threads to Hoffman’s lesser-known novel were not heretofore noted might lie in the care Gogol took to separate his persona from the protagonist of The Diary of the Madman as well as from the likely source of its inspiration. After all, Kreisler was the actual pseudonym under which Hoffmann himself published his brilliant essays on music, and Murr was the real name of his own cat. Gogol’s dogs in the Diary had, of course, no relation to reality, nor did their “writings.” Regardless of its initial designs, the Diary of a Madman is clearly a masterpiece in its own right, perfectly reflecting not only Gogol’s own crisis, but also convincingly tracing the humorous, yet tragic, progress of a perfectly average Petersburg clerk to the point when he can imagine himself to be the King of Spain and hear dogs talking. Firmly anchored in the world of the 1830s, there is nonetheless a touch of modernity in the tale’s focus on the absurdity of human existence.
The same sense can be gained in a story related to the Arabesques cycle, The Nose, which concludes our sampling of Gogol’s fiction. In it the Nose—magically separated from its normal place—independently achieves a rank higher than its owner, the protagonist Kovalev. The story’s modernity can be demonstrated by comparing the beginning of Kafka’s Metamorphosis—”As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect”—with the way Gogol anticipated an equally absurd state eight decades earlier, as he has Kovalev wake up early one morning and “to his great astonishment find a completely flat space where his nose should have been.” Kafka’s explicit verbal modeling expresses the static and exitless existence of an insectoid human with an apple (symbol of original sin) embedded in its carapace. Gogol’s noseless protagonist shows a remarkable agility in his endless and humorous search for his just as remarkably mobile nose; the sins of Gogol’s story—if there are any indeed—exist only on the implicit level (such as the sexual connotations of the subject matter, or the sacrilegious overtones of finding a “nose” instead of the “body of Christ” in the daily bread). It must be also said that the real and quite typical horrors of twentieth-century Soviet Russia, such as a wife “going to the police herself to report” on her husband, or the dictum that a writer must only write “useful literature for his country,” and if he does not, he just might become a candidate for physical extermination in a concentration camp, all these true horrors are anticipated by the power of Gogol’s prophetic writing. Indeed, there is a dreadful accuracy in the economy with which Gogol can paint when he is at his best, and that he most definitely is in The Nose. For instance, the scene of the barber waking up at his home and seeing his portly wife who didn’t like any caprices is used on a number of occasions in Russian literature. In our volume this uneven family situation is exploited by Fyodor K. Sologub in his short story A Little Man, but for an altered purpose and with a prodigiously different outcome. Even one gesture, such as the one expressing Praskovia Osipovna’s demeaning attitude to her husband when she “tossed a loaf of bread on the table”—in lieu of a cup of coffee—to appease his modest wishes, would be developed as a leitmotif for a matriarch’s attitude to her sons in an entire novel, The Golovlev Family, by Satykov-Shchedrin. In that social satire of the 1870s a just-as-portly mother would occasionally “fling a bone” to her children whom for reasons of economy she kept half starved—just as Gogol’s Praskovia Osipovna did to her husband.
But if we can find in this Petersburg Tale genesis for all kinds of transformations in future works, nothing should prevent us from enjoying the story’s own metamorphoses. There are plenty, starting from the history of its making. Originally planned as a dream from which the protagonist awakes at the end of the story, its final format shapes an estranged and mixed-up reality—a series of waking dreams—in which Petersburg barbers may just find noses in their daily bread, noses themselves may stroll as civil councilors, ride in carriages, or piously pray in churches, and runaway house serfs may in fact be runaway poodles. In Gogol’s imagination the nose must be understood as precisely that arabesque protrusion from the plane of the human face, which allows not only for his best characterization, but also for contact between the inner self and its surroundings. The central enigma of the story is paraded for the reader right from the beginning at the mention of the barbershop’s signboard, “where a gentleman is depicted with his cheeks covered with soapsuds,” to which a naturally arising question—as to whether his nose is or is not seen from the midst of the soapsuds—is never answered. Instead the author quotes an inscription on the signboard “also lets blood,” but again the reader never discovers to his full satisfaction why this is mentioned. Does it stand for the then common practice of applying leeches to reduce blood-pressure, or does it threaten the true horror of cutting a nose from human face, or does it—as the bread-flinging reference—function as yet another sacrilegious symbol? We may never know, yet it is clear that Gogol, who began with horror stories against a rural backdrop, found Petersburg to be just as viable a setting for weaving estranged fantastic scapes. Due to his technique of arabesque modeling, these new works could easily transcend both the bathos and pathos of his earlier creations and achieve universal significance in their fantasy-making.
Gogol holds a unique place in Russian fiction—indeed, the period from about 1835 to his death in 1852 is commonly referred to as the age of Gogol—and it is for this reason that we devote a full section of this volume to his works.
[ABRIDGED]
Vyi is a collosal creation of the popular imagination. It is the name among the Little Russians for the chief of the gnomes, whose eylids droop down to the earth. The whole story is folklore. I was unwilling to change it, and tell it in the simple words in which I heard it. (N. GOGOL)
As soon as the rather musical seminary bell which hung at the gate of the Bratskii Monastery rang out every morning in Kiev, schoolboys and students hurried thither in crowds from all parts of the town. Students of grammar, rhetoric, philosophy and theology trudged to their class-rooms with exercise-books under their arms. The grammarians were quite small boys; they shoved each other as they went along and quarrelled in shrill altos; almost all wore muddy or tattered clothes, and their pockets were full of all manner of rubbish, such as knucklebones, whistles made of feathers, or a half-eaten pie, sometimes even little sparrows, one of whom suddenly chirruping at an exceptionally quiet moment in the class-room would cost its owner some resounding whacks on both hands and sometimes a thrashing. The rhetoricians walked with more dignity; their clothes were often quite free from holes; on the other hand, their countenances almost all bore some decoration, after the style of a figure of rhetoric: either one eye had sunk right under the forehead, or there was a monstrous swelling in place of a lip, or some other disfigurement. They talked and swore among themselves in tenor voices. The philosophers conversed an octave lower in the scale; they had nothing in their pockets but strong, cheap tobacco. They laid in no stores of any sort, but ate on the spot anything they came across; they smelt of pipes and horilka to such a distance that a passing workman would sometimes stop a long way off and sniff the air like a setter dog.
As a rule the market was just beginning to stir at that hour, and the workmen with bread-rings, rolls, melon seeds, and poppy cakes would tug at the skirts of those whose coats were of fine cloth or some cotton material.
“This way, young gentleman, this way!” they kept saying from all sides, “here are bread-rings, poppy cakes, twists, tasty white roles; they are really good! Made with honey! I baked them myself.”
Another woman, lifting up a sort of long twist made of dough, would cry, “Here’s a bread stick! Buy my bread stick, young gentleman!”—“Don’t buy anything off her; see what a horrid woman she is, her nose is nasty and her hands are dirty …”
But the women were afraid to worry the philosophers and the theologians, for they were fond of taking things to taste and always a good handful.
On reaching the seminary, the crowd dispersed to their various classes, which were held in low-pitched but fairly large rooms, with little windows, wide doorways, and dirty benches. The class-room was at once filled with all sorts of buzzing sounds: the “auditors” heard their pupils repeat their lessons; the shrill alto of a grammarian rang out, and the window-panes responded with almost the same note; in a corner a rhetorician, whose stature and thick lips should have belonged at least to a student of philosophy, was droning something in a bass voice, and all that could be heard at a distance was, “Boo, boo, boo …” The “auditors,” as they heard the lesson, kept glancing with one eye under the bench, where a roll or a cheese cake of some pumpkin seed were peeping out of a scholar’s pocket.
When the learned crowd managed to arrive a little too early, or when they knew that the professors would be later than usual, then by general consent they got up a fight, and everyone had to take part in it, even the monitors whose duty it was to maintain discipline and look after the morals of all the students. Two theologians usually settled the arrangements for the battle: whether each class was to defend itself individually, or whether all were to be divided into two parties, the bursars and the seminarists. In any case the grammarians launched the attack, and as soon as the rhetoricians entered the fray, they ran away and stood at points of vantage to watch the contest. Then the devotees of philosophy, with long black moustaches, joined in, and finally those of theology, very thick in the neck and attired in enormous trousers, took part. It commonly ended in theology beating all the rest, and the philosophers, rubbing their ribs, were forced into the classroom and sat down on the benches to rest. The professor, who had himself at one time taken part in such battles, could, on entering the class, see in a minute from the flushed faces of his audience that the battle had been a good one, and while he was caning rhetorics on the fingers, in another classroom another professor would be smacking philosophy’s hands with a wooden bat. The theologians were dealt with in quite a different way: they received, to use the expression of a professor of theology, “a peck of peas a piece,” in other words, a liberal drubbing with short leather thongs.
On holidays and ceremonial occasions the bursars and seminarists went from house to house as mummers. Sometimes they acted a play, and then the most distinguished figure was always some theologian, almost as tall as the belfry of Kiev, who took the part of Herodias of Potiphar’s wife. They received in payment a piece of linen, or a sack of millet, of half a boiled goose, or something of the sort. All this crowd of students—the seminarists as well as the bursars, with whom they maintain an hereditary feud—were exceedingly badly off for means of subsistence, and at the same time had extraordinary appetites, so that to reckon how many dumplings each of them tucked away at supper would be utterly impossible, and therefore the voluntary offerings of prosperous citizens could not be sufficient for them. Then the “senate” of the philosophers and theologians dispatched the grammarians and rhetoricians, under the supervision of a philosopher (and sometimes took part in the raid themselves), with sacks on their shoulders to plunder the kitchen gardens—and pumpkin porridge was made in the bursars’ quarters. The members of the “senate” ate such masses of melons that next day their “auditors” heard two lessons from them instead of one, one coming from their lips, another muttering in their stomachs. Both the bursars and the seminarists wore long garmets resembling frock-coats, “prolonged to the utmost limit,” a technical expression signifying below their heels.
The most important event for the seminarists was the coming of the vacation; it began in June, when they usually dispersed to their homes. Then the whole highroad was dotted with philosophers, grammarians and theologians. Those who had nowhere to go went to stay with some comrade. The philosophers and theologians took a situation, that is, undertook the tuition of the children of prosperous families, and received in payment a pair of new boots or sometimes even a coat. The whole crowd trailed along together like a gipsy encampment, boiled their porridge, and slept in the fields. Everyone hauled along a sack in which he had a shirt and a pair of leg-wrappers. The theologians were particular thrifty and precise: to avoid wearing out their boots, they took them off, hung them on sticks and carried them on their shoulders, especially if the road was muddy; then, tucking their trousers up above their knees, they splashed fearlessly through the puddles. When they saw a village they turned off the high road and going up to any house which seemed a little better looking than the rest, stood in a row before the windows and began singing a chant at the top of their voices. The master of the house, some old Cossack villager, would listen to them for a long time, his head propped on his hands, then he would sob bitterly and say, turning to his wife: “Wife! What the scholars are singing must be very deep; bring them fat bacon and anything else that we have.” And a whole bowl of dumplings was emptied into the sack, a good-sized piece of bacon, several flat loaves, and sometimes of trussed hen would go into it too. Fortified with such stores, the grammarians, rhetoricians, philosophers and theologians went on their way again. Their numbers lessened, however, the farther they went. Almost all wandered off towards their homes, and only those were left whose parental abodes were farther away.
Once, at the time of such a migration, three students turned off the high road in order to replenish their store of provisions at the first homestead they could find, for their sacks had long been empty. They were the theologian, Khaliava; the philosopher, Khoma Brut; and the rhetorician, Tiberii Gorobets.
The theologian was a well-grown, broad-shouldered fellow; he had an extremely odd habit—anything that lay within his reach he invariably stole. In other circumstances, he was of an excessively gloomy temper, and when he was drunk he used to hide in the tall weeds, and the seminarists had a lot of trouble to find him there.
The philosopher, Khoma Brut, was of a cheerful disposition, he was very fond of lying on his back and smoking a pipe; when he was drinking he always engaged musicians and danced the trepak. He often had a taste of the “peck of peas,” but took it with perfect philosophical indifference, saying that there is no escaping from the inevitable. The rhetorician, Tiberii Gorobets, had not yet the right to wear a moustache, to drink horilka, and to smoke a pipe. He only wore a forelock round his ear, and so his character was as yet hardly formed; but, judging from the big bumps on the forehead, with which he often appeared in class, it might be presumed that he would make a good fighter. The theologian, Khaliava, and the philosopher, Khoma, often pulled him by the forelock as a sign of their favour, and employed him as their messenger.
It was evening when they turned off the high road; the sun had only just set and the warmth of the day still lingered in the air. The theologian and the philosopher walked along in silence smoking their pipes; the rhetorician, Tiberii Gorobets, kept knocking off the heads of the wayside thistles with his stick. The road weaved in between the scattered groups of oak- and nut-trees standing here and there in the meadows. Sloping uplands and little hills, green and round as cupolas, were interspersed here and there about the plain. The cornfields of ripening wheat, which came into view in two places, were the evidence that they were nearing some village. More than an hour passed, however, since they had seen the cornfields, yet there were no dwellings in sight. The sky was now completely wrapped in darkness, and only in the west there was a pale streak left of the glow of sunset.
“What the devil does it mean?” said the philosopher, Khoma Brut. “It looked as though there must be a village in a minute.”
The theologian did not speak, he gazed at the surrounding country, then put his pipe back in his mouth, and they continued on their way.
“Upon my soul!” the philosopher said, stopping again, “not a devil’s fist to be seen.”
“Maybe some village will turn up farther on,” said the theologian, not removing his pipe.
But meantime night had come on, and a rather dark night. Small clouds increased the gloom, and by every token they could expect neither stars nor moon. The students noticed that they had lost their way and for a long time had been walking off the road.
The philosopher, after feeling the ground about him with his feet in all directions, said at last, abruptly, “I say, where’s the road?”
The theologian did not speak for a while, then, after pondering, he brought out, “Yes, it is a dark night.”
The rhetorician walked off to one side and tried on his hands and knees to grope for the road, but his hands came upon nothing but foxes’ holes. On all sides of them there was the steppe, which, it seemed, no one had ever crossed.
The travellers made another effort to press on a little, but there was the same wilderness in all direction. The philosopher tried shouting, but his voice seemed completely lost on the steppe, and met with no reply. All they heard was, a little afterwards, a faint moaning like the howl of a wolf.
“I say, what’s to be done?” said the philosopher.
“Why, halt and sleep in the open!” said the theologian, and he felt in his pocket for flint and tinder to light his pipe again. But the philosopher could not agree to this: it was always his habit at night to put away a quarter-loaf of bread and four pounds of fat bacon, and he was conscious on this occasion of an insufferable sense of loneliness in his stomach. Besides, in spite of his cheerful temper, the philosopher was rather afraid of wolves.
“No, Khaliava, we can’t,” he said. “What, stretch out and lie down like a dog, without a bite or a sup of anything? Let’s make another try for it; maybe we shall stumble on some dwelling-place and get at least a drink of horilka for supper.”
At the word “horilka” the theologian spat to one side and brought out, “Well, of course, it’s no use staying in the open.”
The students pushed on, and to their intense delight soon caught the sound of barking in the distance. After listening which direction it came from, they walked on more boldly and a little later saw a light.
“A farm! It really is a farm!” said the philosopher.
He was not mistaken in his supposition; in a little while they actually saw a little homestead consisting of only two cottages looking into the same farmyard. There was a light in the windows; a dozen plum-trees stood up by the fence. Looking through the cracks in the paling-gate the students saw a yard filled with carriers’ waggons. Here and there the stars peeped out in the sky.
“Look, mates, don’t let’s be put off! We must get a night’s lodging somehow!”
The three learned gentleman banged on the gates with one accord and shouted, “Open up!”
The door of one of the cottages creaked, and a minute later they saw before them an old woman in a sheepskin.
“Who is there?” she cried, with a hollow cough.
“Give us a night’s lodging, Granny; we have lost our way; a night in the open is as bad as a hungry belly.”
“What manner of folks may you be?”
“We’re harmless folks: Khaliava, a theologian; Brut, a philosopher; and Gorobets, a rhetorician.”
“I can’t,” grumbled the old woman. “The yard is crowded with folk and every corner in the cottage is full. Where am I to put you? And such great hulking fellows, too! Why, my cottage will fall to pieces if I put such fellows in it. I know these philosophers and theologians; if one began taking in these drunken fellows, there’d soon be no home left. Be off, be off! There’s no place for you here!”
“Have pity on us, Granny! How can you let Christian souls perish for no rhyme or reason? Put us where you please; and if we do aught amiss of anything else, may our arms be withered, and God only knows what befall us—so there!”
The old woman seemed somewhat softened. “Very well.” she said as though reconsidering, “I’ll ley you in, but I’ll put you up all in different places, for my mind won’t be at rest if you are all together.”
“That’s as you please; we’ll make no objection,” answered the students.
The gate creaked and they went into the yard.
“Well, Granny,” said the philosopher, following the old woman, “how would it be, as they say … upon my soul, I feel as though somebody were driving a cart in my stomach: not a morsel has passed my lips all day.”
“What next will he want!” said the old woman. “No, I’ve nothing for you, and the oven’s not been heated today.”
“But we’d pay for it all,” the philosopher went on, “tomorrow morning, in hard cash. Yes!” he added in an undertone. “The devil a bit you’ll get!”
“Go in, go in! and be satisfied with what you’re given. Fine young gentlemen the devil has brought us!”
Khoma the philosopher was thrown into utter dejection by these words; but his nose suddenly aware of the odour of dried fish, he glanced at the trousers of the theologian who was walking at his side, and saw a huge fish-tail sticking out of his pocket. The theologian had already succeeding in filching a whole crucian from a waggon. And as he had done this simply from habit, and, quite forgetting his crucian, was already looking about for anything else he could carry off, having no mind to miss even a broken wheel, the philosopher slipped his hand into his friend’s pocket, as though it were his own, and pulled out the crucian.
The old woman put the students in their separate places: the rhetorician she kept in the cottage, the theologian she locked in an empty closet, the philosopher she assigned a sheep-pen, also empty.
The latter, on finding himself alone, instantly devoured the crucian, examined the hurdle walls of the pen, kicked an inquisitive pig that woke up and thrust its snout in from the next pen, and turned over on his right side to fall into a sound sleep. All of a sudden the low door opened, and the old woman bending down stepped into the pen.
“What is it, Granny, what do you want?” said the philosopher.
But the old woman came towards him with outstretched arms.
“Aha, ha!” thought the philosopher. “No, my dear, you are too old!”
He moved a little aside, but the old woman unceremoniously approached him again.
“Listen, Granny!” said the philosopher. “It’s a fast time now; and I am a man who wouldn’t sin in a fast for a thousand gold pieces.”
But the old woman spread her arms and tried to catch him without saying a word.
The philosopher was frightened, especially when he noticed a strange glint in her eyes. “Granny, what is it? Go—go away—God bless you!” he cried.
The old woman tried to clutch him in her arms without uttering a word.
He leapt to his feet, intending to escape; but the old woman stood in the doorway, fixing her glittering eyes on him and again began approaching him.
The philosopher tried to push her back with his hands, but to his surprise found that his arms would not rise, his legs would not move, and he perceived with horror that even his voice would not obey him; words hovered on his lips without a sound. He heard nothing but the beating of his heart. He saw the old woman approach him. She folded his arms, bent his head down, leapt with the swiftness of a cat upon his back, and struck him with a broom on the side; and he, prancing like a horse, carried her on his shoulders. All this happened so quickly that the philosopher scarcely knew what he was doing. He clutched his knees in both hands, trying to stop his legs from moving, but to his extreme amazement they were lifted against his will and executed capers more swiftly than a Circassian racer. Only when they had left the farm, and the wide plain lay stretched before them with a forest black as coal on one side, he said to himself, “Aha! she’s a witch!”
The waning crescent of the moon was shining in the sky. The timid radiance of midnight lay mistily over the earth, light as transparent veil. The forests, the meadows, the sky, the dales, all seemed as though slumbering with open eyes; not a breeze fluttered anywhere; there was a damp warmth in the freshness of the night; the shadows of the trees and bushes fell on the sloping plain in pointed wedge shapes like comets. Such was the night when Khoma Brut, the philosopher, set off galloping with a mysterious rider on his back. He was aware of an exhausting, unpleasant, yet voluptuous sensation assailing his heart. He bent his head and saw that the grass which had been almost under his feet seemed growing at a depth far away, and that above it lay water, transparent as a mountain stream, and the grass seemed to be at the bottom of a clear sea, limpid to its very depths; anyway, he clearly saw in it his own reflection with the old woman sitting on his back. He saw shining there a sun instead of a moon; he heard the bluebells ringing as the bent their little heads; he saw a water-nymph float out from behind the reeds, there was the gleam of her leg and back, rounded and supple, all brightness and shimmering. She turned towards him and now her face came nearer, with eyes clear, sparkling, keen, with singing that pierced to the heart; now it was on the surface, and shaking with sparkling laughter it moved away; and now she turned on her back, and her cloudlike breasts, milk-white like faience, gleamed in the sun at the edges of their white, soft and supple roundness. Little bubbles of water like beads bedewed them. She was all quivering and laughing in the water …
Did he see this or did he not? Was he awake or dreaming? But what was that? The wind of music? It is ringing and ringing and eddying and coming closer and piercing his heart with an insufferable thrill …
“What does it mean?” the philosopher wondered, looking down as he flew along full speed. He was bathed in sweat, and aware of a fiendishly voluptuous feeling, he felt a stabbing, exhaustingly terrible delight. It often seemed to him as though his heart had melted away, and with terror he clutched at it. Worn out, desperate, he began trying to recall all the prayers he knew. He went through all the exorcisms against evil spirits, and all at once felt somewhat refreshed; he felt that his step was growing slower, the witch’s hold upon his back seemed feebler, thick grass brushed him, and now he saw nothing extraordinary in it. The clear crescent moon was shining in the sky.
“Good!” the philosopher Khoma thought to himself, and he began repeating the exorcisms almost aloud. At last, quick as lightning, he sprang from under the old woman and in his turn leapt on her back. The old woman, with a tiny tripping step, ran so fast that her rider could scarcely breathe. The earth flashed by under him; everything was clear in the moonlight, though the moon was not full; the ground was smooth, but everything flashed by so rapidly that it was confused and indistinct. He snatched up a piece of wood that lay on the road and began whacking the old woman with all his might. She uttered wild howls; at first they were angry and menacing, then they grew fainter, sweeter, clearer, then rang out gently like delicate silver bells that stabbed him to the heart; and the thought flashed through his mind: was it really an old woman?
“Oh, I’m done in!” she murmured, and sank exhausted to the ground.
He stood up and looked into her face (there was the glow of sunrise and the golden domes of the Kiev churches were gleaming in the distance): before him lay a lovely creature with luxuriant tresses all in disorder and eyelashes as long as arrows. Senseless she tossed her bare white arms and moaned, looking upwards with eyes full of tears.
Khoma trembled like a leaf on a tree; he was overcome by pity and a strange emotion and timidity, feelings he could not himself explain. He set off running full speed. His heart throbbed uneasily, and he could not account for the strange new feeling that had taken possession of him. He did not want to go back to the farm; he hastened to Kiev, pondering all the way on this incomprehensible adventure.
There was scarcely a student left in the town. All had scattered about the countryside, either to situations or simply without them, because in the villages of the Ukraine they could get cheese cakes, cheese, sour cream, and dumplings as big as a hat without paying a kopek for them. The big rambling house in which the students were lodged was absolutely empty, and although the philosopher rummaged in every corner and even felt in all the holes and cracks in the roof, he could not find a bit of bacon or even a stale roll such as were commonly hidden there by the students.
The philosopher, however, soon found means to improve his lot: he walked whistling three times through the market, finally winked at a young widow in a yellow bonnet who was selling ribbons, buckshot and assorted wheels, and was that very day regaled with wheat dumplings, a chicken … in short, there is no telling what was on the table laid before him in a little hut in the middle of a cherry orchard.
That same evening the philosopher was seen in a pot-house; he was lying on the bench, smoking a pipe as his habit was, and in the sight of all he flung the Jew who kept the house a gold coin. A mug stood before him. He looked at the people that came in and went out with eyes full of quiet satisfaction, and thought no more of his extraordinary adventure.
Meanwhile rumours were circulating everywhere that the daughter of one of the richest Cossack sotniks [an officer of a company of a hundred Cossacks], who lived nearly fifty versts from Kiev, had returned one day from a walk terribly injured, hardly able to crawl home to her father’s house, was on the verge of death, and had expressed a wish that one of the Kiev seminarists, Khoma Brut, should read the prayers over her and the psalms for three days after her death. The philosopher heard of this from the rector himself, who summoned him to his room and informed him that he was to set off on the journey without any delay, that the noble sotnik had sent servants and a carriage to fetch him.
The philosopher shuddered from an unaccountable feeling which he could not have explained to himself. A dark presentiment told him that something evil was awaiting him. Without knowing why, he bluntly declared that he would not go.
“Listen, Domine Khoma!” said the rector. (on some occasions he expressed himself very courteously with those under his authority.) “Who the devil is asking you whether you want to go or not? All I have to tell you is that if you go on jibing and making difficulties, I’ll order you a good flogging on your back and the rest of you.”
The philosopher, scratching behind his ear, went out without uttering a word, proposing at the first suitable opportunity to put his trust in his heels.
[However Khoma was unable to avoid the sotnik’s request and was compelled to present himself at the sotnik’s residence and pray for three succesive nights over the young woman’s corpse. Following is Gogol’s depiction of the final night]:
Everything was the same, everything wore the same sinister familiar aspect. He stood still for a minute. The horrible witch’s coffin was still standing motionless in the middle of the church.
“I won’t be afraid; by God, I will not!” he said and, drawing a circle around himself as before, he began recalling all his spells and exorcisms. There was an awful stillnes; the candles spluttered and flooded the whole church with light. The philosopher turned one page, then turned another and noticed that he was not reading what was written in the book. With horror he crossed himself and began chanting. This gave him a little more courage; the reading made progress, and the pages turned rapidly one after the other.
All of a sudden … in the midst of the stillness … the iron lid of the coffin burst with a crash and the corpse rose up. It was more terrible than the first time. Its teeth clacked horribly against each other, its lips twitched convulsively, and incantations came from them in wild shrieks. A whirlwind swept through the church, the icons fell to the ground, broken glass came flying down from the windows. The doors were burst from their hinges and a countless multitude of monstrous beings trooped into the church of God. A terrible noise of wings and scratching claws filled the church. Everything flew and raced about looking for the philosopher.
All trace of drink had disappeared, and Khoma’s head was quite clear now. He kept crossing himself and repeating prayers at random. And all the while he heard the fiends whirring round him, almost touching him with their loathsome tails and the tips of their wings. He had not the courage to look at them; he only saw a huge monster, the whole width of the wall, standing in the shade of its matted locks as of a forest; through the tangle of hair two eyes glared horribly with eyebrows slightly lifted. Above it something was hanging in the air like an immense bubble with a thousand claws and scorpion-stings protruding from the centre; black earth hung in clods on them. They were all looking at him, seeking him, but could not see him, surrounded by his mysterious circle. “Bring Viy! Fetch Viy!” he heard the corpse cry.
And suddenly, a stillness fell upon the church; the wolves’ howling was heard in the distance, and soon there was the thud of heavy footsteps resounding through the church. With a sidelong glance he saw they were bringing a squat, thickset, bandy-legged figure. He was covered all over with black earth. His arms and legs grew out like strong sinewy roots. He trod heavily, stumbling at every step. His long eyelids hung down to the very ground. Khoma saw with horror that his face was of iron. He was supported under the arms and led straight to the spot where Khoma was standing.
“Lift up my eyelids. I do not see!” said Viy in a voice that seemed to come from underground—and all the company flew to raise his eyelids.
“Don’t look!” an inner voice whispered to the philosopher. He could not restrain himself and he looked.
“There he is!” shouted Viy, and thrust an iron finger at him. And the whole horde pounced upon the philosopher. He fell expiring to the ground, and his soul fled from his body in terror.
There was the sound of a cock crowing. It was the second cock-crow; the first had been missed by the gnomes. In panic they rushed to the doors and windows to fly out in utmost haste; but they stuck in the doors and windows and remained there.
When the priest went in, he stopped short at the sight of this defamation of God’s holy place, and dared not serve the requiem on such a spot. And so the church was left for ever, with monsters stuck in the doors and windows, was overgrown with trees, roots, rough grass and wild thorns, and no one can now find the way to it.
[… A brief epilogue follows. A.L]
There is no finer sight than Nevsky Prospect, at least not in St. Petersburg; it epitomizes the whole city. No aspect of this thoroughfare fails to dazzle—the fairest of our capital! I know not a single one of the pale officials who live there would exchange Nevsky Prospect for anything on earth. Not only those who are twenty-five years old, with fine moustaches and surprisingly well-made frock coats, but even those with white hairs sprouting on their chins and with heads as smooth as silver dishes, they too find Nevsky Prospect a source of great delight. And women! Oh, for women Nevsky Prospect is an even greater attraction! And who could resist it! As soon as you set foot on Nevsky Prospect you’re aware of the fairground atmosphere. Even if you have some important, pressing business to attend to, once there you’ll most likely forget about business of any kind. This is the only place where people put in an appearance for reasons other than expediency, where they have not been driven to by necessity and the business interests which motivate all St. Petersburg. It seems that a man encountered on Nevsky Prospect is less greedy than on Morskaia (Marine), Gorokhovaia (Pease), Liteinaia (Foundry) or Meshchanskaia (Bourgeois) or any other street, where acquisitiveness, profits and necessity are written all over the faces of the people walking along or flying past in their carriages. Nevsky Prospect is St. Petersburg’s main artery of communication. An inhabitant of the Petersburg or Vyborg district who has not visited his friend from Peski (The Sands) or the Moscow Gate neighborhood for years can be sure of meeting him here. No street-guide or information bureau could provide you with such trustworthy information as Nevsky Prospect. Almighty Nevsky Prospect! The only entertainment for the poor people of Petersburg out for a stroll! How cleanly the pavements are swept and, Lord! how many feet have left their mark there! The clumsy, muddy boots of the retired soldier, under whose weight the very granite seems to crack, and the dainty, ethereal shoes of the young lady who turns her pretty head towards the shining shop windows like a sunflower turning towards the sun, and the jingling saber of the hopeful ensign, which leaves a deep scratch in it—both the power of strength and the power of weakness batter it. The fleeting phantasmagoria that is enacted there in the course of a single day! How many changes it undergoes between one day and the next!
Let’s begin with early morning, when all of Petersburg smells of hot, freshly-baked loaves and is packed with old women in tattered dresses and coats making their forays on the churches and sympathetic passersby. Then Nevsky Prospect is empty: thickset shop owners and their salesmen are still asleep in their Dutch shirts or are soaping their noble cheeks and drinking coffee; beggars are gathering around the cafe doors, where a sleepy shop boy, who the day before had flown like a gadfly, carrying cups of chocolate, now creeps with broom in hand and tieless, and tosses the beggars stale pies and leftovers. The needy people trudge through the streets; sometimes Russian peasants, dashing to work in lime-covered boots which even the Yekaterinsky (Catherine’s) canal, so renowned for its purity, could never wash clean. It’s usually not done for Russian ladies to walk there at this time because Russians love to express themselves in such spicy terms as they would likely never hear even in the theater. Sometimes a sleepy official trudges along with a brief-case under his arm if the way to his office takes him across Nevsky Prospect. One can say definitely that at this time of day, that is up to twelve noon, Nevsky Prospect constitutes a means rather than an end for people: it gradually fills up with people preoccupied with their jobs, their worries and anxieties, who are totally oblivious of it. A Russian peasant speaks about ten kopeks or seven copper farthings, old men and women gesticulate with their hands or converse with each other, sometimes with rather uninhibited gestures, but nobody listens to them or laughs at them, except perhaps for the little boys in cotton smocks, carrying empty bottles or newly-made boots in their hands, running along Nevsky Prospect like lightning. At this time of day, no matter what you’re wearing, even if you have a cap on your head instead of a hat, or if your collar comes up too high above your tie—nobody will notice.
At twelve o’clock tutors of all nationalities invade Nevsky Prospect with their pupils in cambric collars. English Joneses and French Coqs walk arm in arm with the pupils entrusted to their parental supervision and with proper decorum explain to them how the signboards over the shops are intended as a means of informing people of what is to be found in the shops themselves. The governesses, these pale misses and pink-skinned Slavs, walk majestically along behind their dainty, fidgety little girls, ordering them to lift their shoulders a little higher and to hold themselves more erect; to sum up, at this time of day Nevsky Prospect is educational Nevsky Prospect. But the closer it gets to two o’clock the more the number of tutors, teachers and children decreases: finally they are replaced by their genteel sires, walking arm-in-arm with their gaudy, multi-colored excitable ladies. Little by little they are joined by those who have concluded important private errands—that is, those who have spoken to their doctors about the weather and the insignificant pimple which has erupted on their nose, those who have made inquiries about the health of their horses and their children, who have, by the way, shown great talent, those who have read a billboard or an important newspaper article about people arriving and departing, and finally those who have been drinking coffee or tea; these are joined by those whose enviable fate has endowed them with the revered profession of official-with-special-responsibilities. And these are joined by people who serve in the Department of Foreign Affairs and who are distinguished by the exalted nature of their occupations and habits. Lord! What splendid posts and jobs there are! How they ennoble and delight the soul! But alas! I am not a civil servant and am deprived of the pleasure of observing the bosses’ refined treatment of me! Everything you are likely to come across on Nevsky Prospect, everything, is permeated with good taste: men in long frock coats, with their hands thrust into their pockets, ladies in pink, white and pale blue satin redingotes and hats. Here you’ll see unique side-whiskers tucked into collars with rare and surprising artistry; velvety, satiny side-whiskers as black as sable or coal, but, alas, belonging only to members of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Providence has not endowed members of other departments with black side-whiskers and they must wear ginger ones, to their great displeasure. Here you’ll encounter wonderful mustaches no pen could describe and no paintbrush depict; mustaches to which the better half of a life has been devoted; the objects of long vigils by day and night, mustaches which have been doused in the most seductive perfumes and scents and colored by all the most expensive and rarest of pomades; mustaches which are wrapped in gossamer vellum paper for the night; mustaches for which their owners demonstrate a most touching affection and which become the envy of passersby. Thousands of kinds of hats, dresses, scarves—parti-colored ones, gauzy ones which sometimes retain the affection of their owners for two whole days, dazzle anyone who happens to be on Nevsky Prospect. It seems that a whole sea of butterflies has suddenly taken flight from its flower stems and surges like a glimmering cloud about the men, who resemble black beetles. Here you’ll see such waistlines as you’ve never even dreamed of: slender, narrow waists, no thicker than the neck of a bottle, for which you chivalrously step aside so as not to carelessly brush against them with a disrespectful elbow; your heart is overcome by timidity and fear, lest with just a careless breath you cause this most delightful product of nature and art to disintegrate. And what ladies’ sleeves you’ll see on Nevsky Prospect. Oh, what sheer delight! They look rather like two air balloons, which make you think that the lady would float up into the air if the gentleman did not have tight hold of her: because it’s as easy and as pleasant to lift a lady into the air as it is to raise a glass of champagne to your lips. Nowhere do people bow as gallantly or unaffectedly when they meet one another as they do on Nevsky Prospect. Here you’ll see that singular smile, that smile which is beyond art and which will sometimes make you melt away with pleasure, and will sometimes make you feel smaller than a blade of grass and lower your head, and also one which will sometimes make you feel taller than the Admiralty Tower and capable of lifting it up. Here you’ll meet people talking of a concert or the weather with such unusual refinement and feelings of personal dignity. Here you’ll meet a thousand inscrutable characters and types. Lord! What strange characters one meets on Nevsky Prospect! There are a great many people who, when they meet you, unfailingly stare at your boots, and, if you walk past they turn round to scrutinize your coattails. I’ve never been able to understand why this is so. At first I thought they were cobblers, but this is not the case: for the most part they work in various departments, and many of them are capable of writing a memorandum from one government department to another in excellent fashion; or they are people out for a walk, or reading the newspapers in the cafes—in a word, they are, for the most part, respectable people. And during that hallowed hour, from two to three in the afternoon, which may be termed the high spot of the afternoon on Nevsky Prospect, the supreme exhibition of Man’s finest products takes place. One person displays a dandyish tail-coat, edged with the finest beaver, another—a fine Greek nose, a third has excellent side-whiskers, a fourth—a pair of pretty eyes and a breathtaking hat, a fifth—a talisman ring on a foppish little finger, a sixth—a foot in an enchanting little shoe, a seventh—a remarkable tie, and an eighth—a mustache to amaze anyone. But the clock strikes three and the exhibition comes to an end, the crowd thins out At three o’clock—another change. It’s suddenly Spring on Nevsky Prospect, the street is covered with officials in green uniforms. Hungry titular, court, and other councilors try to make their way as fast as they possibly can. Young collegiate registrars, provincial and collegiate secretaries, hurry to seize their opportunity of walking along Nevsky Prospect with a bearing that shows they certainly haven’t spent the last six hours sitting in an office. But the old collegiate secretaries, the titular and court councilors, they walk along quickly and with bowed heads: they have no interest in scrutinizing the passersby; they still haven’t torn themselves completely away from their work; inside their heads there’s a jumble and veritable archive of matters begun and as yet unfinished; instead of signboards for a long while they see a box of documents or their office manager’s full face.
From four o’clock on Nevsky Prospect is deserted, and not a single official is to be seen there. The odd seamstress from a dressmaker’s might dash across Nevsky Prospect, carrying a small bandbox; some pitiful victim of a philanthropic attorney thrust into the world in a frieze coat; some passing eccentric for whom time is meaningless; some long, tall Englishwoman carrying a purse and small book in her hands; a cooperative worker, a Russian wearing a high-waisted calico frock coat and sporting a slender beard, who’s lived all his life in a hurry and whose every part, as he makes his way deferentially along the sidewalk, is in constant motion: back, arms, legs and head, and sometimes a low-class artisan … you won’t meet anyone else on Nevsky Prospect at this time.
But as soon as dusk descends on the houses and streets and the watchman, wrapped in matting, clambers up the ladder to light the lamp, and the notice cards which dare not be shown in broad daylight appear in the shops’ lower windows, then Nevsky Prospect takes on new life and begins to stir. Then arrives that mysterious hour when the lamps bathe everything in a beckoning, wondrous light. You will see a great many young men, mostly unmarried, in warm frock coats or greatcoats. At this time a certain sense of purpose can be detected, or rather something resembling a sense of purpose, something completely inexplicable; everybody’s footsteps quicken and, generally speaking, become very erratic; elongated shadows, their heads reaching almost as far as the Politseisky (Police) Bridge, flash across the walls and pavements. Young collegiate registrars, provincial and collegiate secretaries stroll about for hours on end; but the old collegiate registrars, titular and court advisers usually stay indoors, either because such people are married or because the German cooks living in their houses cook such excellent dishes for them. Here you’ll find the respectable old men who at two o’clock were strolling along Nevsky Prospect with such an air of importance and unbelievable sophistication. You’ll see them on the run, just like the young collegiate registrars, to have a sly look at a lady they’ve spotted in the distance, and whose full lips and cheeks, caked with rouge, are such a delight to many passersby, and particularly to the tradesmen, cooperative workers and merchants who can always be seen walking along in a group, all wearing German frock coats and usually arm-in-arm.
“Stop!”—shouted Lieutenant Pirogov (Pie) just at that moment. holding back the young man who was walking along with him in a frock coat and cape. “Did you see?”
“Yes, I did. An enchanting girl; a real Perugino’s Bianca.”
“Whom are you talking about?”
“About her, that one with the dark hair. And what eyes! Lord, what eyes! The way she holds herself, and her figure! And the shape of her face—all wonderful!”
“I’m talking about the blonde who passed her on the other side. Why don’t you follow the brunette, since you seem to fancy her so much?”
“How could I?” exclaimed the young man in the dress coat, blushing. “That would be like saying she was one of those ladies who walk to and fro along Nevsky Prospect of an evening,” he continued, sighing. “She must be very well-to-do, why, her cape alone must be worth about eighty rubles.”
“Fool!” shouted Pirogov, forcibly pushing him in the direction of the lady’s brightly colored cape. “Go on, you numbskull, you’re missing your chance! And I’ll go after that blonde!”
The two friends parted company.
“We know you, all of you,” Pirogov thought to himself, smiling in a self-satisfied, conceited way, totally convinced that no beauty existed who could resist him.
The young man in the frock coat and cape set off with a shy and hesitant gait, in the direction of the many-hued cape, which was now was bathed in a bright light as it approached the light of the street lamp, and now momentarily concealed in darkness as it moved away. His heart pounded and he increased his speed without realizing it. He didn’t even dare to think he might have some right to the attention of the beautiful girl who had flown away into the distance, let alone admit to any shady thoughts of the kind hinted at by Lieutenant Pirogov; but he did want just to see the house and make a note of where this delightful creature lived, this creature who, it seemed, had flown down from Heaven straight onto Nevsky Prospect, and, doubtless would fly away again Heaven knows where. He was flying along so quickly that he kept on knocking middle-aged, gray-whiskered gentlemen off the sidewalk. This young man belonged to that class of people who seem such a strange phenomenon to us and who belong to the citizens of Petersburg about as much as a face appearing to us in a dream belongs to the material world. This exclusive class is very unusual in a city where everybody is officials, merchants or German craftsmen. He was an artist. They are a strange phenomenon, aren’t they? A Petersburg artist! An artist in the land of snows, an artist in the land of the Finns, where everything is damp, slippery, flat, pale, gray or misty. These artists are totally unlike Italian artists, who are proud and passionate like Italy and her sky; on the contrary, these are for the most part kind, timid, shy, easy-come-easy-go people, quietly in love with their art, who drink, tea with a couple of friends in their small rooms and unaffectedly talk about their favorite subject, heedless of all else. They are always inviting some old beggar-woman back to their rooms and making her sit for six whole hours so that they can transpose her pitiful, lifeless face onto canvas. They draw the perspective of their own rooms, in which there’s all sort of artists’ rubbish: plaster hands and feet, coffee-colored with time and dust, broken artists’ work benches, an overturned palette, a friend playing a guitar, paint-spattered walls and an open window, through which are glimpsed the pale Neva and fishermen in red shirts. Almost everything they own has a murky gray cast to it—the indelible stamp of the North. But with all this they labor over their work with genuine enjoyment. They often nurture real talent within them, and if only the fresh breeze of Italy could blow on them this talent doubtless would blossom as freely, expansively and brilliantly as a plant which is taken at last out of doors and into the fresh air. They’re generally very shy: the star and broad epaulette throw them into such confusion that they automatically lower the prices of any of their works. Occasionally they like to play the dandy, but their dandyism always seems too abrasive and has a slap-dash look. You’ll sometimes see them wearing an excellent tailcoat with a soiled cape, an expensive velvet waistcoat and a paint-stained frock coat. Just as, on one of their unfinished landscapes you’ll sometimes see sketched at the bottom the head of a nymph which the artist, unable to another spot for it, had dashed off in outline on the filthy primer coat of a previous work he’d once painted for pleasure. They never look you straight in the eye; or if they do, then they do so in a somewhat hazy, indecisive way, theirs is not the penetrating hawk-like stare of an examiner or the falcon glance of a cavalry officer. This stems from the fact that they see at the same time both your features and those of some plaster Hercules standing in their room, or they’re imagining a picture of their own, one which they’re still thinking of doing. For this reason they often answer incoherently, sometimes off the point, and the jumbled-up subjects in their mind only increase their timidity. And to such a breed belongs the young man we’ve just described, the artist Piskarev, shy and timid, but concealing feelings in his soul which, at the right moment, were ready to burst into flame. With secret trembling he hurried along after the subject who had made such a strong impression on him, and he himself seemed surprised at his own audacity. The unknown creature on whom his eyes, thoughts and feelings were fixed suddenly turned her head and looked at him. Lord! What heavenly features! The dazzling whiteness of her delightful forehead was framed in beautiful jet-black hair. They curled, those wonderful locks, and some of them, cascading down from beneath her hat, caressed her cheeks, which were touched with a delicate fresh pinkies due to the evening chill. Her lips were sealed by a host of the most delightful dreams. All those things which recall memories of our childhood and which provide dreams and quiet inspiration in the light of a glowing lamp—all these, it seemed, gathered, merged and were expressed in her harmonious lips. She looked at Piskarev, and that look made his heart flutter; she looked sternly at him, a sense of the vexation evoked by such impudent pursuit overspread her features; but on this beautiful face even anger was captivating. Overcome with shame and timidity, Piskarev (Squeak) simply stood there with his eyes lowered; but how could he let such a divine being out of his sight without even discovering the sacred place in which she condescended to abide? Such were the thoughts which entered the young dreamer’s head, and he decided to continue the chase. But to avoid being noticed, he moved further back, casually looked in both directions and examined the signboards, but all the while he didn’t allow a single step the girl took to escape his notice. Pedestrians began to flash past less often, the street was becoming quieter; the beautiful girl turned around, and it seemed to him that a slight smile flashed across her lips. He was all a-quiver and could not believe his own eyes. No, it was the lamp with its deceptive light drawing on her face something like a smile; no, it was his own dreams laughing at him. But his breath faltered within his breast and was converted there into an undefined trembling, all his senses were on fire and everything in front of him was swallowed up by a kind of mist. The sidewalk swam beneath him, carriages with galloping horses seemed stock still, the bridge stretched and snapped at its arch, a house was standing upside down, a sentry box stooped to meet him, and the watchman’s halberd together with the golden lettering of a signboard and the pair of scissors pictured on it shone as if they hung on his very eyelashes. And all this was the effect of a single glance, a single turn of a beautiful little head. Hearing nothing, seeing nothing, noticing nothing, he scurried along in the traces of those beautiful little feet, trying to regulate the speed of his steps, which were keeping time with his heartbeats. At times he was overcome by doubts: was the expression on her face really so favorable—and then he would stop for a moment, but his heart-beats, the invincible force and turmoil of all his feelings urged him on. He didn’t even notice how a four-story building suddenly appeared in front of him, with four rows of windows, all lit up and all looking at him at once, and the balustrade by the entryway barred his way with an iron jolt. He saw the unknown lady fly up the stairs, look around, put her finger to her lips and signal him to follow her. His knees trembled; his emotions and thoughts were on fire; a lightning flash of joy, unbearably sharp, pierced his heart. No, this was no longer a dream! Lord, how much happiness in a single moment! A lifetime’s ecstasy in two minutes!
But was this not all a dream? Was it possible that this woman, in exchange for whose single heavenly glance he was prepared to surrender his whole life, and to approach whose house he considered the most inexpressible of pleasures, was it possible that she was really favorably inclined towards him and attentive of him just now? He flew up that staircase. He was experiencing no earthly thoughts; he was consumed by no earthly passion; no, at that moment he was pure and chaste, like a virginal youth, still breathing an undefined spiritual craving for love. And what would in a licentious man have roused daring thoughts was the very thing which, on the contrary, sanctified them to him. This trust which the weak, beautiful creature displayed to him, this trust placed him under a vow of chivalrous self-restraint, a vow to carry out her every command as if he were her slave. He only wished that these commands be as demanding and difficult to execute as possible so that he could fly to overcome them with a greater exertion of strength. He did not doubt that some secret and at the same time important occurrence had obliged this unknown girl to confide in him; and that without doubt, great favors would be demanded of him, and he could already feel inside himself a strength and decisiveness equal to anything.
The staircase swirled upwards, and his rapid dreams swirled with it. “Go carefully!” a voice resounded like a harp, infusing his veins with renewed trembling. At the dark top of the third floor the unknown girl knocked at a door—it opened and they walked in together. A rather pleasant-looking woman met them with a candle in her hand, but she looked at Piskarev in such a strange, insolent manner that he involuntarily lowered his eyes. They entered the room. There, feminine shapes in different corners met his eyes. One of the women was laying out cards, another was sitting at the piano, making a pitiful, two-fingered attempt at an old Polonaise; the third was sitting in front of a mirror combing her long hair, with no intention whatever of interrupting her toilette for a stranger’s entry. A certain unpleasant disorder, such as one only sees in the room of a carefree bachelor, reigned supreme. The furnishings, of fairly high quality, were covered in dust; a spider had veiled the molded cornice with its web; through the partly open door into the other room the spurs of a pair of boots and the red braid of a uniform could be seen; a loud male’s voice and a woman’s laughter resounded unrestrainedly.
Lord! Where had he come to! At first he didn’t want to believe it and began to stare harder at the objects filling the room; but the bare walls and undraped windows didn’t bespeak the presence of a conscientious landlady; the haggard faces of these pitiful creatures, one of whom was sitting right under his nose, surveying him as calmly as she would a stain on someone else’s gown—all this convinced him he had come upon one of those dens of iniquity in which pitiful vice, born of tawdry education and the fearful overcrowding of the capital, had made its abode. It was one of those dens where men sacrilegiously trample on and mock all that is pure and holy and makes life beautiful, where Woman, the jewel of the world, the crown of creation, is transformed into some strange, ambiguous being, where she and the purity of her soul are stripped of everything feminine and repulsively acquires the tricks and shamelessness of men, and ceases to be that weak, beautiful creature so different from us. Piskarev scanned her from head to foot with astonished eyes, as if still trying to assure himself this was the same girl who had charmed and captivated him on Nevsky Prospect. But she stood before him, looking just as beautiful as before, her hair was just as beautiful, and her eyes seemed every bit as heavenly. She was fresh-complected, not a day more than seventeen years old, and it was obvious that she had only recently been caught up in horrifying depravity; it still had not dared to touch her cheeks, they were so fresh and slightly tinged with alight blush—she was beautiful.
He stood motionless before her, ready to be swept off his feet by her again, as he had been earlier. But the beautiful girl grew impatient with such a long silence and smiled insinuatingly, looking him straight in the eye. But that smile was full of a somehow pitiful insolence; it looked so strange and unsuited to her face, as a pious expression is to a bribe-taker’s mug, or an accountant’s ledger to a poet. He shuddered. She opened her pretty little mouth and began to say something, but it was all so stupid, so banal … as if intelligence had disappeared with chastity! He didn’t want to hear anything else. He was extraordinarily abashed and as artless as a child. Instead of using such favor, instead of rejoicing at such an opportunity, which without doubt would have rejoiced any other man in his position, he took to his heels like a wild goat and ran out into the street.
Head hung low and limbs drooping, he sat in his room like a poor man who has found a priceless pearl and then immediately dropped it into the sea. “Such a beauty; such a divine creature—what’s she doing in a place like that?” They were the only words he could utter.
Indeed, remorse never overcomes us so powerfully as when we see beauty touched by the rotten breath of debauchery. We can accept ugliness as vice’s companion, but beauty, such tender beauty … in our minds it can only be associated with chastity and purity. The beautiful girl who had so charmed poor Piskarev was a truly wonderful, unusual creature, and her living in the despicable milieu seemed more and more unbelievable. Her features were all so finely traced and the expression on her beautiful face bore the stamp of such nobility it was impossible to think that debauchery had clasped her in its terrible claws. She could have been the priceless pearl, the whole world, the whole of paradise, or all the wealth of a passionate husband, she could have been the beautiful, gentle star of an ordinary family circle and with just a movement of her beautiful mouth she could have uttered her sweet instructions. She could have been a goddess in a crowded room, on the bright parquet floor in the gleam of the candles, surrounded by the silent reverence of a multitude of faithful admirers at her feet. But alas! By the horrid will of the denizen of Hell, athirst to destroy the harmony of life, she had been cast, sped on by laughter, into his abyss.
Overcome with heartrending pity, Piskarev sat before a guttering candle. It was already long past midnight, the bell in the tower struck half-past while he sat motionless, not yet asleep yet at the same time not fully awake. Drowsiness, taking advantage of his inertia, was about to steal up on him; already the room was beginning to disappear, only the glow of the single candle was shining through the dreams overpowering him, when suddenly a knock at the door made him start and brought him around. The door opened, and in came a servant in a fine livery. No fine livery had ever entered into his isolated room, especially at such a late hour He was amazed, and with impatient curiosity he stared at the servant who had just arrived.
“The lady,” the servant said with a polite bow, “at whose house you deigned to spend some time, has ordered me to invite you to call on her and has sent a carriage for you.”
Piskarev stood in silent amazement: A carriage, a servant in livery! No, surely there must be some mistake….
“Listen, my good man,” he said timidly, “perhaps you’ve called at the wrong house. The lady must have sent you to fetch someone else, not me.”
“No sir, I’m not mistaken. Was it not you who were so good as to walk the lady home to her room on the third floor, on Liteinaia Street?”
“It was.”
“Well, then, please hurry. The lady wishes to see you without fail and asks you to come straight to her house.”
Piskarev ran downstairs. Outside there really was a carriage. He got into it, the doors slammed shut, the cobblestones of the road-way clattered under the wheels and hooves—and the illuminated perspective of the houses with bright signboards flashed past the carriage windows. Piskarev pondered for the entire journey and didn’t know what to conclude about this adventure. Her own house, a carriage, a servant in fine livery—he couldn’t reconcile all this with the room on the third floor, the dusty windows and the out-of-tune piano. The carriage drew up outside a brightly-lit entrance gate and Piskarev was immediately stunned: a line of carriages, the chatter of coachmen, brightly-lit windows and the sound of music. The servant in the fine livery helped him down from the carriage and respectfully led him into a hall with marble columns, a doorman bedecked in gold, scattered capes and furs and a bright lamp. An airy staircase suffused with perfumes and with a gleaming balustrade led upwards. He was already on it and had already gone up to the first room, stunned and frightened into taking a step backwards from the terrifying crowd of people. The extraordinarily variegated mass of people confused him utterly; it seemed to him that some devil had crumbled up the world into thousands of different pieces and was now, with no significance or meaning, mixing them together. The gleaming shoulders of the ladies and the black tail-coats, the chandeliers, the sconces, the incorporeal, flickering gas lamps, the ethereal ribbons and the fat bassoon, staring out from behind the railings of the great choirs—all this was dazzling to him. He saw at a glance so many dignified old and middle-aged men with stars on their frock coats, ladies, so lightly, proudly and graciously stepping out onto the parquet floor or sitting in rows, he heard so many French and English words, and, moreover, the young men in black frock coats were infused with such an air of nobility, they spoke and kept silent with such propriety, as they had learned not to say anything superfluous, and they joked so magnificently and smiled so respectfully, wore such wonderful whiskers, had such a talent for displaying their wonderful hands while arranging their neckties, and the ladies were so incorporeal and so steeped in complete self-conceit and ecstasy, they lowered their eyes so enchantingly that … but the mere sight of Piskarev’s benumbed expression, pressed timidly as he was against a column, illustrated how completely his nerves had been shattered. At that moment the crowd clustered around a group of dancers. They surged on, draped in their transparent Parisian creations, in their dresses woven out of the air itself; they stepped carelessly over the parquet with their dainty gleaming feet and they could not have appeared more ethereal if they had been walking on air. But one was more lovely and dressed so much more sumptuously and strikingly than all the rest. An inexplicable, subtle combination of taste was evident in her garb and for all that it seemed that she had not troubled herself about it; it just happened by itself, spontaneously. She was both looking and not looking at the surrounding crowd, she lowered her beautiful long eyelashes indifferently, and the gleaming whiteness of her face dazzled the eye most blindingly when her enchanting brow lightly shaded it as she inclined her head.
Piskarev used all his strength to force away through the crowd to have a look at her; but, to his great annoyance, some huge head with dark curly hair kept getting in the way; moreover, the crowd hemmed him in to such an extent that he did not dare edge forward, nor move backwards, so afraid was he of unintentionally nudging into some privy councilor. But then he managed to edge forward and glance down at his coat, thinking to adjust it. God in Heaven, what was this! He was wearing a frock coat stained all over with paint; hurrying off, he had forgotten all about changing into a decent coat. He blushed to the ears and, head down, wanted to sink through the floor but there was no room to sink: the gentlemen-of-the-bedchamber in their gleaming suits moved into position behind him like a veritable wall. He wanted to get as far away as possible from the beautiful girl with the beautiful forehead and eyelashes. In terror he raised his eyes to see if she was looking at him—Lord! She was standing right in front of him But what’s this? What’s this? “It’s she”—he shouted almost at the top of his voice. Indeed, it was she, that very same girl whom he had met on Nevsky Prospect and whom he had taken home.
Meanwhile, she raised her eyelashes and was looking at everyone with her clear eyes. “Oh, oh, oh how beautiful she is! …” was all he could say, with halting breath. She cast her eyes over the circle of people vying with each other to attract her attention, but with a certain aloofness and inattention she quickly put them off, and then her eyes met Piskarev’s. Oh! What Heaven! What Paradise! God give me strength to bear all this! It’s more than life can stand, it will destroy and carry off my soul! She signaled to him, not with her hand but with a nod of her head—no, in her ravishing eyes this sign was expressed in such a slight, unnoticeable expression, that nobody could have seen it, but he did see, did understand her. The dance went on a long time; the weary music seemed to die down and fade away completely, then again swell up, shriek and thunder: at last—it was over! She sat down, her breast was heaving in the faint smoke from the gaslight, her hand (Lord, what a wonderful hand!) fell onto her lap, pressed her incorporeal dress down and beneath it the dress seemed to breathe the music, and its faint lilac color outlined more vividly the whiteness of this beautiful hand. If only he could touch it—nothing more! No other desires—they would only be an impertinence. He was standing behind her chair, not daring to speak, not daring to breathe.
“You were bored,” she said. “So was I. I see you despise me …” she added, lowering her long eyelashes.
“Despise you? Me? … I” The completely nonplussed Piskarev was about to speak, and he would have surely uttered a mass of incoherent words but at this moment a gentleman-in-waiting with a beautiful tuft of hair gathered up on top of his head approached them, making witty and pleasant remarks. He rather good naturedly displayed a row of reasonably good teeth and with each of his witticisms banged a sharp nail through Piskarev’s heart. At last somebody standing to the side, fortunately, turned to the gentleman-in-waiting with a question.
“I can’t stand any more!” she said, raising her heavenly eyes toward him. “I’m going to sit down at the other end of the hall: you must come there!”
She slipped through the crowd and disappeared. He shot through the crowd as one demented and got there before her.
Yes, this was she! She was sitting, like a tsaritsa, more lovely and more beautiful than the rest, searching for him with her eyes.
“You’ve come,” she said quietly. “I’ll be frank with you: I’m sure the circumstances of our meeting seem strange to you. But surely you can’t believe that I belong to that despicable class of creatures among whom you found me. My behavior must seem strange to you, but I’m going to reveal my secret to you. Will you be able,” she said, riveting her eyes on him, not to betray it?”
“Oh, I will! I will! I will!”
But at that moment a rather elderly man approached and began talking to her in a language which Piskarev could not understand, and offered her his arm. She looked at Piskarev imploringly and signaled to him to stay where he was and wait till she returned, but a fit of impatience made him unable to hear a single command even from her lips. He set off after her, but the crowd separated them. He could no longer see her lilac dress; he walked from room to room in a state of agitation and mercilessly jolted people who got in his way, but in all the rooms there were only aces seated at their whist, steeped in deathly silence. In one corner of the room some elderly people were arguing about the advantages of military service over civilian; in another, people dressed in magnificent frock coats were making flippant remarks about the voluminous works of a poet-worker. Piskarev became aware of an elderly gentleman, of respectable appearance, who seized hold of his coat button and asked his opinion on a very justifiable remark, but he rudely pushed him away, without even noticing that the man was wearing a rather prestigious order around his neck. He ran through to another room—she was not there either. Nor was she in the third room. “Where is she? Give her to me! Oh, I cannot live without seeing her! I want to hear what she was going to tell me!” But all his searchings were in vain. Agitated, exhausted, he huddled in a corner and simply gazed at the crowd; but his strained eyes began to make him see things unclearly. Finally, the walls of his room became plainly visible to him. He raised his eyes; in front of him stood a candlestick with the flame burned almost right down into the socket; the candle had all melted away; the wax had spilled onto his table.
He had been asleep! Lord, what a beautiful dream! And why did he wake up? Why could it not have gone on for just a moment longer? She surely would have appeared again! The irritating daylight looked in through the window with its unpleasant, dingy brilliance. The room was in such gray, murky disorder … Oh, how loathsome reality is! How can it compare with a dream? He quickly undressed and lay down on his bed, wrapped in a blanket, wishing to recapture the retreating dream if only for a moment. Sleep, in fact, was not long returning, but it presented him with a dream that was not at all what he desired: now Lieutant Pirogov appeared smoking a pipe, now an Academy guard, now a real state councilor, now the head of the Finnish woman whose portrait he had once drawn, and other such nonsense.
He lay in bed as late as midday, trying to get to sleep; but she never returned. If only for a fleeting moment she would show her beautiful features, if only for a fleeting moment he could hear her gentle footsteps, if only her bare arm, as white as heavenly snow, would flash before his eyes!
Oblivious of everything, abandoning everything, he sat with a distraught, hopeless look on his face, completely engrossed in the dream. He didn’t think of taking up anything; his eyes stared lifelessly and distractedly through the window overlooking the yard where a filthy water-carrier was pouring out water which froze in mid-air and the goatish voice of some peddler rattled “Old clothes for sale.” Anything connected with daily life or reality had a strangely grating effect on his ears. So he sat till evening and then threw himself eagerly onto his bed. He wrestled for a long time with insomnia and finally conquered it. Again a dream, a common, vulgar dream. “God have mercy on me; show her to me, just for a minute, just for a single minute!” He again waited for evening again fell asleep, again dreamed of some official who was both an official and a bassoon at the same time. Oh! It was unbearable! Finally she appeared! Her head and ringlets … She looked at him … but how briefly! Then again a mist, again some stupid dream.
Eventually dreaming became his life, and from then on his entire life took a strange turn: he, one might say, slept while awake and was only awake in his sleep. If someone were to see him sitting quietly at a bare table or walking along a street, they doubtless would take him for a sleepwalker or for someone the worse for drink; the look in his eyes was totally absent of any meaning, and his natural absentmindedness eventually increased and peremptorily banished all sensations and movement from his face. He revived only with the onset of night.
This situation sapped his strength, but the most awful torture for him was that finally the dream began to leave him completely. Wishing to save this, his only remaining treasure, he used all his efforts to bring it back. It came to his ears that there was a means of recalling his dream—all one needed to do was take opium. But where was he to get opium? He remembered about a certain Persian who kept a gown shop and who, when they met, nearly always asked Piskarev to draw him a portrait of a beautiful woman. He decided to approach him, supposing that he would be bound to have this opium. The Persian received him seated on a couch with his feet folded under him.
“What do you want opium for?” he asked him.
Piskarev told him about his insomnia. “Very well, then, I’ll let you have some opium, but you must draw me a beautiful woman. And I mean beautiful! With black eyebrows and eyes as big as olives; with me lying beside her smoking a pipe! You hear! She’s got to be good looking! A real beauty!” Piskarev promised everything. The Persian went out for a moment and returned with a small jar filled with a dark liquid, carefully poured part of it into another jar and gave it to Piskarev with instructions to use no more than seven drops in a little water. Piskarev avidly seized this precious jar, which he would not have sold for a pile of gold, and dashed off home.
When he got home he poured a few drops into a glass of water and, drinking it down, collapsed on the bed to sleep.
Lord! What joy! She! She was back! But in a completely different form. Oh, how pretty she was as she sat by the window of a bright little country cottage! Her clothes breathed such simplicity as only poets’ thoughts are clothed in. Her coiffure Lord, how simple that coiffure was and how it suited her! A pretty little scarf was lightly flowing about her pretty neck; everything about her was modest, everything about her displayed a mysterious, inexplicable sense of taste. How delightfully and gracefully she walked! How musical was the sound of her footsteps and the swish of her simple dress! How beautiful her arm was, encircled by a bracelet with locks of dear ones’ hair! She spoke to him with tears in her eyes: “Don’t despise me: I am not at all the kind of girl you took me for. Look at me, look me in the eye and tell me: surely I’m not capable of what you thought.”
“Oh, no, no! Just let anyone dare think, just let …” But he wakened, agitated, unnerved, with tears in his eyes. “It would have been better had you never existed, had never been born and had remained no more than the creation of some inspired artist. I would never have left the canvas, I would have gazed at you and kissed you for eternity. I would have lived and breathed you as the most beautiful of dreams, and I would have been happy. That would have been all I desired. I would have invoked you, as my guardian angel, on going to sleep and on awakening, and I would have waited for you when I had to create something divine and holy. But now … what a terrible life! What purpose does she serve by living? Surely a madman’s life brings no joy to his relatives and friends who were once so fond of him. Lord, what kind of life is ours! An eternal conflict between dreams and reality!” Such thoughts occupied him almost constantly. He could think of nothing, he ate practically nothing and awaited the night and his desired dream with the impatience and passion of a lover. This constant concentration of his thoughts on one thing finally assumed such control over his whole being and imagination that the desired vision appeared to him almost every day, always in a way which was opposite to reality, because his thoughts were always pure like those of a child. Through these dreams their subject became more pure and was completely transformed.
The doses of opium inflamed his thoughts even more and if ever there was a man driven by love to the greatest degree of insanity, so relentlessly, terribly, destructively and ruinously—then this was that unfortunate soul.
Of all his dreams there was one which was more joyous for him than all the rest: in it he had a vision of his studio, in which he was so happy, sitting so contentedly with a palette in his hands. And she was there too, now his wife, sitting by his side, her beautiful elbow resting on the back of his chair, and she was surveying his work. In her eyes, weary and tired, the burden of joy was evident; everything in the room breathed paradise; everything was so bright, so tidy. Lord! She lowered her delightful head onto his chest. This was the most enthralling dream he had ever known. He got up after it feeling somehow refreshed and less distraught than before. Strange thoughts came to him. “Perhaps,” he thought, “she was drawn into vice by some terrible event over which she had no control; perhaps the workings of her soul incline towards repentance; perhaps she would like to get herself out of this terrible situation. And surely I can’t stand by, indifferent, and watch her destroy herself when all I have to do is hold out my hand to save her from going under.” And his thoughts went further. “Nobody knows me,” he said to himself, “and I am no more concerned about what others do than they are about me. If she displays genuine repentance and changes her life, then I’ll marry her. I must marry her, and surely I would be doing something far better than many who marry their housekeepers or sometimes even the most despicable of creatures. Mine, however, will be an entirely altruistic act, perhaps even great: I’ll be returning something of rare beauty to the world.”
When he had devised his simple plan, he felt the color rush to his cheeks; he walked over to the mirror and was himself shocked by his sunken cheeks and the pallor of his face. He began to smarten himself up, taking great care; he washed, smoothed down his hair; put on a few frock coat, a smart waistcoat, threw on a cape and went out of the house. He breathed in the fresh air and his heart responded to the feeling of freshness, like a convalescent who has decided to venture out of doors for the first time after a prolonged illness. His heart was pounding as he drew near to that street which he had not set foot on since that fateful meeting.
He searched for the house for a long time; it was as if his memory was playing tricks on him. Twice he walked up and down the street, not knowing which house to stop in front of. Finally one seemed likely. He ran quickly up the steps and knocked on the door: the door opened and who came out to meet him? His ideal, his mysterious image, the model for the pictures in his dreams—the girl who had become life itself for him in such a terrible, agonizing, blissful way. She stood in front of him: he trembled, his legs could scarcely support him for weakness, he was seized by a sudden fit of joy. She stood before him, so beautiful, though her eyes were sleepy and a certain pallor had crept over her face, which had lost some of its freshness. But she was still beautiful.
“Ah,” she exclaimed, seeing Piskarev and rubbing her eyes (it was already two o’clock): “why did you run away from us back then?”
Exhausted, he sat down on a chair and looked at her.
“I’ve only just awakened. I was brought home this morning at seven o’clock. I was quite drunk,” she continued, smiling.
Oh, better you were mute and missing your tongue than to say such things! She had suddenly revealed the whole panorama of her life to him. However, despite this, and wrestling with his emotions, he decided on trying to see if his exhortations would have any effect on her. Mustering his courage, he began in a quivering, but at the same time passionate, voice to describe her dreadful predicament to her. She listened to him with an attentive look and that feeling of surprise which we display at the sight of something strange and unexpected. Faintly smiling, she glanced at her friend sitting in the corner who, breaking off from cleaning her comb, also listened attentively to the new preacher.
“It’s true that I’m a poor man,” said Piskarev at last, after lengthy and persuasive exhortations. “But we’ll work, we’ll each try to out do the other, to make a better life for ourselves. There’s nothing sweeter than to owe everything to one’s own labors. I will sit over at my paintings, you’ll sit at my side and give me the inspiration for my work while you’re busy sewing or doing some other handiwork, and we’ll lack for nothing.”
“Not likely” she interrupted what he was saying with an expression of scorn. “I’m nobody’s washerwoman or seamstress to be made to work.”
Lord! All the despicable and degraded aspects of her life were revealed in these words—a life full of emptiness and idleness, the faithful companions of vice.
“Marry me!” said her friend, who had hitherto been sitting in silence in the corner, with a cheeky look in her eyes. “If you make me your wife, I’ll sit like this! “And with that her pitiful face assumed a witless expression which threw the beautiful girl into fits of laughter.
Oh, that was too much! That was more than he could stand! He turned and ran, his feelings and thoughts out of control. His mind clouded over: he wandered about all day in a stupor, aimlessly, seeing and hearing nothing. It is impossible to say if he found anywhere to spend the night or not; but the next day, kept going by some blind instinct, he found his way back to his own room, pallid, with a terrified aspect, his hair disheveled and signs of insanity on his face. He locked himself in his room, admitted nobody and asked for nothing. Four days passed, during which time the locked door was not opened even once; at last a week had passed and the door still remained locked. People hurled themselves against the door and began to call out to him, but there was no reply; finally they smashed the door in and found his lifeless body with the throat cut. A razor, dripping blood, was lying on the floor. From the convulsively outstretched arms and terrifyingly distorted look on his face one could tell that his hand had faltered and he had suffered for a long time before his sinful soul had departed from his body.
Thus perished poor Piskarev, the victim of a mindless passion; the quiet, timid, humble, childishly simple-hearted artist, carrying within him that spark of genius which in time might have flared up expansively and glowingly. No one shed a tear for him; there was no one to be seen watching by his lifeless body, except for the usual presence of the constable and the indifferent face of the town doctor. His coffin was conveyed to the Okhta in silence; there were no religious rites, even. A solitary soldier-guard walked behind it, crying, and that was really only because he had drunk a drop too much vodka. Even Lieutenant Pirogov did not come to view the corpse of the poor, wretched man to whom he had extended his high patronage when he was alive. Moreover, Pirogov had other things on his mind: he was preoccupied with a very unusual event. But let’s return to him. I don’t like corpses and the deceased, and it always upsets me when a long funeral procession passes and an invalid soldier, dressed like some sort of Capuchin monk, takes a pinch of snuff with his left hand because he is holding the torch in his right. It always vexes me deep down to see a resplendent catafalque and velvet coffin; but my vexation is tinged with sorrow when I see a drayman pulling along a pauper’s completely unadorned pine coffin, behind which a solitary beggar woman, having met the procession at a cross-roads, trudges for want of something to do.
We, left Lieutenant Pirogov, I believe, at the point where he parted from poor Piskarev and shot off after the blonde. This blonde was a dainty, rather attractive creature. She stopped in front of every shop and gazed at the sashes, scarves, earrings, gloves and other knick-knacks, while she swirled around ceaselessly, looking all around her and behind her. “You, my little darling, belong to me!” said Pirogov, confidently, continuing his pursuit with his face thrust into his coat collar in case he met someone he knew. But it won’t do any harm to tell the reader what sort of person Pirogov was.
But before we say what sort of person Lieutenant Pirogov was, it won’t do any harm to say a few words about the society to which Pirogov belonged. There are officers in Petersburg who constitute a sort of middle class in society. You’ll always find them at soirees or dinners at the home of a state councilor or an acting councilor who has earned his rank by forty years of hard work. Daughters, pale and completely colorless, like Petersburg itself, some of whom are past their prime, a tea-table, a piano, house parties—all these are inextricably associated with the gleaming epaulette which shines in the lamplight between a virtuous little blonde and the black coat of her brother or of some friend of the family. It is extremely difficult to rouse these cold-hearted young ladies and make them laugh: to do this one needs great skill or, rather, no skill at all. It is essential not to say anything either too intelligent or too amusing, but to talk in terms of the trivialities which women love to hear. In this respect, credit must be given to the above-mentioned gentlemen. They are particularly gifted when it comes to making these colorless beauties laugh and listen. Exclamations, smothered in laughter, such as: “Oh stop it! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, saying such ridiculous things,” are often their greatest reward. Such gentlemen are seldom, or rather never, encountered in high society. They are completely shouldered out by those society calls aristocrats; they are, however considered learned and well-bred. They love to discuss literature; they praise Bulgarin, Pushkin and Grech, and talk disparagingly, and with sarcastic wit, of A. A. Orlov. They never miss a single public lecture, whether it concerns accountancy or even forestry. At the theater, whatever play is on, you’ll always find one of them, except perhaps if it’s a Filatka farce, which is so offensive to their discerning taste. In the theater they’re permanent fixtures. These are the theater manager’s most profitable customers. They’re particularly fond of good poetry in a play, and also enjoy bellowing their “encores”; many of them, by teaching in government establishments or by coaching pupils for them, eventually acquire a carriage and pair. Then their circle becomes wider and they finally succeed in marrying a piano-playing merchant’s daughter who has a hundred thousand, more or less, in ready cash and many, many bearded kinfolk. However, they cannot attain this honor before working their way up to the rank of at least colonel. For this reason the bearded Russian merchants, despite the fact that they still reek of cabbage, have no desire whatever to see their daughters marry anything less than a general, or at the very least, a colonel. Such are the principal characteristics of young men of this class. But Lieutenant Pirogov had a great many unique talents. He could give an excellent recital of verse from Dmitry Donskoi and Woe from Wit, and had mastered the exacting art of blowing smoke rings from his pipe so skillfully he could string nearly a dozen of them together one on top of the other. He could relate an anecdote very well, showing that a cannon is one thing and a unicorn another. But its rather difficult to list all the talents with which nature had endowed Pirogov. He loved to talk about actresses and dancers, but not so coarsely as a young ensign would normally express himself on such a matter. He was very satisfied with his rank to which he had recently been promoted and although at times, lying on his couch, he would say “Oh! Oh! Vanity of vanities! What does it matter that I’m a lieutenant?” in secret he was extremely proud of his new rank; in conversations he often tried to hint at it in a roundabout way, and once in the street, when he came across some petty clerk who failed to show him sufficient respect, he immediately stopped the man and in a few sharp words let him know that before him stood not just any officer, but a lieutenant. He tried to be particularly eloquent in his remarks, since at the time a couple of attractive ladies were passing by. Pirogov, generally speaking, demonstrated a passion for everything elegant, and encouraged the artist Piskarev; however, this was probably because of a consuming urge to see his own virile face on canvas. But that’s enough about Pirogov’s qualities. The man is such a wonderful creature that it would not be possible to enumerate fully all his qualities just off the cuff, and the more one examines him the more new characteristics become apparent, and a description of them would be endless. And so, Pirogov continued in his pursuit of the unknown girl, from time to time putting questions to her which she would answer tersely, abruptly and with incomprehensible utterances. They walked through the dark Kazan Gate, onto Meshchanskaia Street, a street full of tobacconists and dingy little shops, of German craftsmen and Finnish nymphets. The blonde was running quickly and flitted in through the gate of a rather grub-by-looking house. Pirogov went after her. She ran up a narrow, dark staircase and in at a door through which Pirogov also boldly went. He found himself in a large room with black walls and a soot-covered ceiling. On the table lay a heap of iron screws, locksmith’s tools, gleaming coffee pots and candlesticks; the floor was littered with copper and iron filings. Pirogov immediately grasped that this was a craftsman’s apartment. The unknown girl dashed through into a side-room. He hesitated for a second, then obeying the Russian rule, continued ahead decisively. He entered a room which, totally unlike the first, was tidy and neat, indicating that the tenant was a German. He was struck by an unusually strange sight.
Before him sat Schiller, not the Schiller who wrote William Tell and A History of the Thirty Years’ War, but the famous Schiller, the master tinsmith of Meshchanskaia Street. Near Schiller stood Hoffmann, not the writer Hoffmann, but the better-than-average cobbler from Offitserskaia (Officer) Street, the staunch friend of Schiller. Schiller was sitting on a chair, drunk, tapping his foot and saying something animatedly. All this would not have been particularly surprising to Pirogov, but he was surprised at the strange positions the two were in. Schiller was seated, his rather fat nose and head pointing upwards, and Hoffmann was holding his nose with two fingers and was twirling the blade of his cobblers’ knife just above it. Both of them were speaking in German and so Lieutenant Pirogov, who only knew the German “Gut morgen,” could understand nothing of this drama. However, Schiller’s words amounted to this:
“I don’t want it, I don’t need my nose!” he said, waving his arms about. “My nose alone uses up to three pounds of snuff a month. And I put my money into some filthy Russian shop, because the German shop doesn’t stock Russian snuff, I put forty kopeks per month into the filthy shop for every pound; that makes it one ruble twenty kopeks; and twelve times a ruble twenty kopeks makes fourteen rubles forty kopeks. Do you hear, Hoffmann, my friend? Fourteen rubles forty kopeks on my nose alone! And on holidays I take rappee, because I don’t want to sniff filthy Russian snuff on holidays. In a year I sniff two pounds of rappee, at two rubles a pound. Six and fourteen make twenty rubles forty kopeks on snuff alone. That’s daylight robbery! I ask you, my friend, is that not so?”
Hoffmann, who was also drunk, answered in the affirmative.
“Twenty rubles forty kopeks! I’m a Schwabian German; I have a king in Germany. I don’t want my nose! Cut off my nose! There’s my nose!”
And had it not been for Pirogov’s sudden appearance, Hoffmann, no doubt, would have cut off Schiller’s nose without more ado, for he was already holding the knife as if he were about to cut out a shoe-leather.
Schiller seemed very annoyed at this unknown, uninvited person, who had interrupted him at such an inopportune moment. And, despite the fact that he was in such a drunken daze from wine and beer, he felt it was rather indecent to be seen by an onlooker in such a state and performing such a deed. Meanwhile Pirogov made a slight bow and in his characteristically pleasant way said:
“If you will excuse me …”
“Clear off!” answered Schiller in a drawling voice.
This perplexed Lieutenant Pirogov. Nobody had ever addressed him like this before. The faint smile which was just beginning to appear on his face suddenly vanished. With a feeling of offended dignity, he said,
“I find it rather strange, my dear sir … you must not have noticed … I’m an officer….”
“What’s an officer to me? I’m a Schwabian German.” “I too (and with that Schiller thumped the table with his fist) am able to be officer; eighteen months a junker, two years a lieutenant and next day I’m already an officer. But I don’t want to enlist. This is what I think of officers: Pfooey!” said Schiller, extending his palm and snorting into it.
Lieutenant Pirogov saw that the only thing left for him to do was to withdraw; such a course of action, totally unbecoming in one of his rank, was disagreeable to him. Several times on the stairs he stopped short, trying to muster his courage and think of a way of making Schiller realize how impertinent he had been. Finally he came to the conclusion that it was possible to excuse Schiller on the grounds that the latter’s head was saturated with beer; and in addition the image of the pretty blonde appeared to him and he decided to consign all this to oblivion. The next morning, very early, Lieutenant Pirogov went to the tinsmith’s workshop. In the hallway he was met by the pretty blonde who asked him in a rather stern voice, which suited her little face very well:
“What do you want?”
“Oh, good day, my dear! Don’t you recognize me? You little rogue, what beautiful eyes you’ve got!”
As he said that, Liuetenant Pirogov tried to give her a gentle pat under her chin. But the blonde let out a startled cry and with the same severity asked:
“What do you want?”
“To see you, that’s all,” said Lieutenant Pirogov, smiling quite pleasantly and moving in closer; but, noticing that the timid blonde was trying to slip out the door, he added; “I need to order some spurs, my dear. You can make spurs, can’t you? Although as far as loving you is concerned, it’s a halter I need, not spurs. What beautiful little hands you’ve got!” Lieutenant Pirogov was always very charming in declarations of this sort.
“I’ll tell my husband this minute,” exclaimed the German girl and went out, and in a few minutes Pirogov saw Schiller emerging with sleep-blurred eyes, not yet fully recovered from the previous day’s binge. Looking at the officer, he remembered, as though in a dream, the events of the previous day. He couldn’t remember now what state he’d been in, but he sensed that he’d done something stupid, and so he received the officer with a very sullen face.
“I can’t make a pair of spurs for less than fifteen rubles,” he said, wishing to get rid of Pirogov because he, as an honorable German, felt very embarrassed coming face to face with someone who had seen him in such a disgraceful condition. Schiller liked to drink completely unobserved, with two or three friends, and at such times even locked himself in, away from his own workmen.
“Why so expensive?” asked Pirogov in a pleasant tone. “German work,” said Schiller nonchalantly, stroking his chin. “A Russian would take the job on for two rubles.”
“With your permission, and in order to prove that I like you and would like to make your acquaintance, I’ll pay the fifteen rubles.”
Schiller thought it over for a moment; he, an honorable German, felt somewhat guilty. And wishing to make Pirogov withdraw his order, he explained that it would take a minimum of two weeks. But Pirogov agreed to this completely and without making any protests.
The German thought for a while and pondered about how best to do the job so that it really would be worth fifteen rubles. At that moment the blonde came into the workshop and began to rummage about on the table, which was cluttered with coffee mugs. The lieutenant took advantage of Schiller’s preoccupation, went up to her and squeezed her arm, which was bare right up to the shoulder. Schiller took great exception to this.
“Meine Frau,” he shouted.
“Was wollen Sie doch?” answered the blonde.
“Gehen Sie to the kitchen.” The blonde went out.
“So then, in two weeks?” said Pirogov.
“Yes, in two weeks,” answered Schiller, deep in thought. “Just at the moment I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“Goodbye. I’ll call in again.”
“Goodbye,” answered Schiller, closing the door behind him.
Lieutenant Pirogov decided not to abandon his quest, having been so cursorily rejected by the German woman. He could not understand how anyone could resist him, particularly as his charming manner and impressive rank gave him every right to her attention. It is, however, necessary to point out that Schiller’s wife, for all her attractiveness, was extremely stupid. But in a pretty wife stupidity is a charming characteristic. At least I have known many husbands who were simply thrilled with their wives’ stupidity and took it as a sign of childlike innocence. Beauty can work absolute wonders. All the spiritual shortcomings in a beautiful girl, instead of evoking revulsion, somehow become unusually attractive; even vice can exude charm in them; but when beauty fades, then a woman needs to be twenty times more intelligent than a man if she is to elicit affection, or at least respect. But Schiller’s wife, for all her stupidity, was always faithful to her obligations and hence it was rather difficult for Pirogov to succeed in his daring undertaking; but satisfaction always accompanies the overcoming of obstacles, and the blonde became a greater source of interest for him with the passing of each day. He took to inquiring about the spurs at regular intervals so that, eventually, Schiller got sick and tired of it. He worked full out to get the spurs finished; finally they were ready.
“Oh what a beautiful job you’ve made of them!—Lieutenant Pirogov exclaimed, when he saw the spurs. “Lord, how splendid! Not even our general has a pair of spurs like these!”
Feelings of self-satisfaction penetrated right into Schiller’s heart. His eyes shone with delight and he became quite friendly towards Pirogov. “This Russian officer is an intelligent man,” he thought to himself.
“So I suppose you could make a sheath for a dagger or something?”
“Of course I could,” said Schiller, smiling.
“Well, make me a sheath for my dagger. I’ll bring it to you; I’ve got a beautiful Turkish one, but I’d like to get another sheath made for it.”
This hit Schiller like a bomb. His brows knitted. “So that’s your game?” he thought, inwardly cursing himself for having brought the work on himself. To refuse now would be dishonorable and the Russian officer had praised his work. Nodding his head slightly, he expressed his consent; but the kiss which Pirogov cheekily planted on the pretty blonde’s lips as he went out completely confounded him.
I consider it necessary here to briefly acquaint the reader with Schiller. Schiller was a typical German in the fullest sense of the word. From the age of twenty, from that happy time during which Russians live foot-loose and fancy free, Schiller had already planned out his life and he made no changes whatever in those plans. He made it a rule to get up at seven o’clock, to dine at two, to be exacting in everything and to get drunk on Sundays. He gave himself ten years to amass capital to the tune of fifty thousand, and all this was as certain and inevitable as fate, because an official will forget to curry favor with his chief’s porter before a German will decide to go back on his word. Under no circumstances would he increase his expenditure, and if the price of potatoes rose more than usual, then he would not fork out an extra kopek, but would reduce the amount consumed, and although he sometimes went a little hungry, he soon became accustomed to it. His punctiliousness went so far as to include his kissing his wife no more than twice a day, and to be sure of not kissing her an extra time he never put more than one teaspoon of hot pepper in his soup; but on Sundays Schiller relaxed this rule a little because he would drink two bottles of beer that day and a bottle of Kummel, which, however, he always cursed. He didn’t drink at all like an Englishman who locks the door immediately after dinner and hits the bottle all alone. On the contrary, he, like a German, was an inspired drinker, and would drink either with Hoffmann the cobbler or the locksmith Kuntz, who was also a German and a heavy drinker. Such was the character of the noble Schiller, who now found himself in an extremely difficult position. Although he was an easygoing German, Pirogov’s behavior roused in him something akin to jealousy. He racked his brains, but could come up with no ideas on how to get rid of this Russian officer. Meanwhile, Pirogov, smoking his pipe with a group of friends—for Providence has decreed that where you find officers you also find pipes—smoking his pipe with a group of friends, he hinted meaningfully and with a pleasant smile on his lips at this intrigue with the pretty little German girl, with whom, to use his words, he was already on familiar terms, but in actual fact he had already lost almost all hope of making a conquest of her.
One day he was out for a stroll along Meshchanskaia Street, and he glanced at the house adorned by Schiller’s signboard with its coffee pots and samovars; to his great joy he saw a blonde head leaning out of a window and staring at the passersby. He stopped, waved to her and said, “Gut morgen.” The blonde nodded to him as to an acquaintance.
“Tell me, is your husband at home?”
“He is,” she answered.
“When is he not at home?”
“He’s always out on Sundays,” the silly little German girl said.
“That’s not bad,” thought Pirogov to himself, “I must take advantage of that.” And the following Sunday, out of the blue, he turned up at the blonde’s house. Schiller really was out. The pretty landlady took fright, but Pirogov conducted himself with more caution this time, behaving respectfully and, bowing, displayed his tightly-belted figure in all its beauty. He joked in a pleasant and agreeable way but the slow-witted little German girl only responded in monosyllables. Finally, having attempted his attack from all angles, and realizing that he was not making any headway, he invited her to dance. The German girl agreed to this in a flash, as all German women are very keen on dancing. All Pirogov’s hopes rested on this: in the first place, it gave her great pleasure, in the second place it would give him a chance to display his suppleness and agility, and in the third place, while dancing he could get closer to and embrace the pretty little German girl and lay the foundations for what was to follow; in short, his scheme worked beautifully. He began to hum some sort of gavotte, knowing that German women prefer something sedate. The pretty little German girl moved out into the middle of the room and lifted her beautiful little foot. This stance enraptured Pirogov to such an extent that he hastened to kiss her. The German girl began to cry out, but this only made her all the more charming in Pirogov’s eyes, and he smothered her with kisses. All of a sudden the door opened and in came Schiller, Hoffmann and the locksmith Kuntz. All these worthy artisans were as drunk as cobblers.
But I’ll leave it to the readers to form their own judgements regarding Schiller’s rage and indignation.
“You scoundrel!” he bawled with consummate indignation, “How dare you kiss my wife?! You’re no Russian officer, you’re a rogue. Devil take him, eh Hoffmann, my friend? I’m a German and no Russian pig!” Hoffmann answered affirmatively. “Nobody’s going to make a cuckold out of me! Grab him by the collar, Hoffmann my friend. Nobody’s going …” he continued, furiously waving his fists about, which made his face go as red as the material his waistcoat was made of. “I’ve been living in Petersburg for eight years, I have a Schwabian mother and an uncle living in Nuremburg; I’m a German and nobody is going to plant cuckold’s horns on me! Let’s kick him out, Hoffmann, my friend! Grab him by his arms and legs, Kamerad Kuntz! “And the Germans grabbed Pirogov by his arms and legs.
His efforts to break away were futile; these three artisans were the heftiest of Petersburg Germans. If Pirogov had been in full uniform, then, most likely, respect for his rank and position would have stopped the unruly Teutons. But he had come as a private, civilian person, in a suit-coat and without his epaulettes.
I am sure that Schiller the next day was in a terrible fever, that he was shaking like a leaf, expecting the arrival of the police at any moment, and that he would have given God knows what for all that had happened to have been just a dream. But what’s done is done. There was nothing to equal Pirogov’s rage and indignation. The mere thought of such a terrible insult was enough to make him furious. He considered Siberia and the lash too light a punishment for Schiller. He flew home to dress and go straight to the general and describe in the most vivid colors the German artisans’ violent conduct. At the same time he wanted to make a complaint in writing to Headquarters. And if Headquarters would not prescribe adequate punishment then he would go to the State council, if not to the Monarch himself.
But all this ended in a rather strange way: on his way he called in at a cafe, ate a couple of puff-pastries and read something from the Northern Bee, and when he emerged from there his rage had somewhat subsided. Moreover, the rather pleasant, cool evening induced him to take a stroll along Nevsky Prospect, and by nine o ‘clock he had calmed down completely and he decided that it was just not done to disturb the General on a Sunday, and moreover that doubtless he had probably been called away somewhere, and for this reason Pirogov set off to spend the evening with one of the directors of the control board, where there would be an agreeable company of officers and officials. There he spent a pleasurable evening and so outdid himself in the mazurka that the gentlemen, as well as the ladies, were entranced.
“How amazingly our world is arranged!” I thought, walking along Nevsky Prospect the day before yesterday and recalling these two events. “How strangely, how inscrutably Fate plays with us! Do we ever get what we desire? Do we achieve what our abilities seem especially suited for? Everything turns out contrary to expectations. Those who have been given fine horses by Fate ride about on them unaware of their beauty, while another, whose heart burns with a passion for horses, goes about on foot and has to be content with merely clicking his tongue when a fine trotter is led past him. One has a marvelous cook, but unfortunately, such a small mouth that he can’t eat more than two morsels; another has a mouth the size of the Headquarters arch, but alas! He must be content with some German dinner made from potatoes. How strangely our Fate plays with us!”
But strangest of all are the things which happen on Nevsky Prospect! Oh, never believe Nevsky Prospect! I always wrap my cloak around me more tightly when walking along it, and I try not to look at the things I see there. It’s all an illusion, it’s all a dream, nothing is what it seems! You think that a man walking along in a beautifully cut coat is rich? Not at all: his coat is all he possesses. You imagine that those two fat men stopped in front of a church under construction are discussing its architecture? Not at all: they’re talking about the two crows who alit opposite each other in such a strange manner. You think that that enthusiast, waving his arms about, is talking about how his wife threw a ball out of the window to an officer whom he did not know? Not at all. he’s talking about Lafayette. You think that these ladies … but you must believe the ladies least of all. Look even less at the shop windows: knick-knacks, beautifully displayed but smacking of vast amounts of money! But God preserve you from peeking under ladies’ hats. However much a beautiful lady’s cape may flutter in the distance, nothing would induce me to take a peek out of curiosity. Keep away, for God’s sake, keep away from the street lamp. Walk past as fast as you possibly can. Consider yourself lucky if you escape with only a few drops of its foul-smelling oil on your foppish coat! But not it’s only the street lamps, everything else breathes deception as well. It deceives at all hours, does Nevsky Prospect, but especially when night descends on it in a thick mass, throwing into relief the white and pastel walls of the houses, when the whole town is transformed into noise and brilliance, when hoards of carriages roll over bridges, the postillions shout and bounce about on their saddles and when the Devil himself ignites the street lamps for the sole purpose of showing everything not in its true guise.
(1835) Translated by A. Tulloch, revised by A.L.
October 3
Something extremely odd happened today. I got up rather late, and when Mavra brought me my cleaned boots I asked her the time. Hearing that ten had struck long ago, I hurried to get dressed as quickly as possible. I confess that I wouldn’t have gone to the office at all, had I known earlier what a sour face the chief of our department would pull. For ages now he’s been saying to me: “Tell me, my man, why’s your head always in such a muddle? Sometimes you dash about like one possessed, and you get your work so mixed up that Satan himself couldn’t sort it out, putting small letters in the title and not noting the date or number.” The damned heron! He’s obviously just jealous of my sitting in the director’s office sharpening quills for His Excellency. In a word, I wouldn’t have gone to the office had it not been for the hope of seeing the pay clerk and seeing what the chances were of getting, however small, an advance on my salary from that yid. Now there’s a creature for you! My God, Last Judgment will arrive before he’ll give anyone their month’s pay in advance. You can ask till you’re blue in the face, he won’t give you anything even if you’re dead broke, the gray-haired devil. But at home even his own cook slaps his face all the time. Everybody knows this. I can’t see any advantage in working in an office. Absolutely no future in it. But in provincial government, in civil and treasury offices it’s a completely different matter: there you’ll see someone huddled up in the corner, doing a bit of writing from time to time. His coat may be filthy and his mug may make you want to spit, but just have a look at the dacha he can rent! And don’t take him a gilt porcelain cup: “That’s a doctor’s present,” he’ll say; but do give him a pair of trotting horses, or a carriage or a three-hundred-ruble beaver-pelt. He’s such a quiet man to look at, and he says so politely, “Do just lend me your penknife to sharpen this one little quill,” and then he’ll fleece a petitioner, right down to the shirt on his back. On the other hand, it is true our office is very refined, and the standard of cleanliness there is such as you would never see in provincial government: the tables are mahogany, and the chiefs all address each other very formally. Yes, I confess, were it not for the dignified nature of the position, I’d have left the office long ago.
I put on my old greatcoat and picked up my umbrella, as the rain was lashing down. Outside there was nobody about; the only people whom I saw were a few women who had covered themselves with their skirt flaps, Russian merchants beneath their umbrellas, and messengers. Of quality folk only one of my fellow officials, shuffling along. I spotted him at the corner. As soon as I spotted him I said to myself: “Oh, no, my dear chap, you’re not on your way to the office, you’re after that blonde who is racing along in front of you, and you’re staring at her ankles.” What sly beasts we officials are! Lord! We’re a match for any officer: if a lady in a hat walks by we never fail to latch on. While this was running through my mind, I noticed a carriage which had drawn up at the shop I was passing. Immediately I recognized it; it was our director’s carriage. “But he has no cause to be going into the shop,” I thought. “It must be his daughter.” I stood close against the wall. A footman opened the door, and she suddenly fluttered from the carriage like a little bird. How she glanced from right to left, how her eyebrows and eyes flashed … Great God Almighty! I was devastated, utterly devastated. And why would she need to venture out in the rain like this? Tell me now that women have no great passion for all these frills. She didn’t recognize me, and for my part I deliberately tried to wrap myself up as much as possible, because my greatcoat was filthy and, moreover, old-fashioned. Nowadays people wear capes with long collars, but mine were short, one on top of the other; and the material was not at all rainproof. Her little dog, who had not been quick enough to get through the shop door, remained outside. I know this little dog. It’s called Madgie. I hadn’t spent a minute there when suddenly I heard a weak little voice: “Hello, Madgie!” Well I never! Who said that? I looked all around me and saw two ladies walking along under an umbrella: one was old, the other young; but they had already walked past and again I heard, close by me: “You should be ashamed of yourself, Madgie.” What the Devil! I saw Madgie sniffing at a lapdog which was walking along behind the ladies. “Oh!”—I said to myself,—that’s enough; am I drunk? But that very rarely is the case with me.” “No, Fidele, you’ve got the wrong idea.” I myself saw Madgie say that. “I’ve been, bow-wow, very ill.” So then, little dog, it’s you! I confess I was very surprised when I heard her speak in human language. But later, when I had had time to think about it, I ceased being surprised. In fact the world knows of many such examples already. They say that in England a fish came to the surface and uttered a couple of words in such a strange language that for the past three years scientists have been trying to identify it, but so far they’ve discovered nothing. I also read in the newspapers about two cows who went into a shop and asked for a pound of tea. But, I confess, I was far more surprised when Madgie said, “I wrote you, Fidele; obviously, Polkan (Rover) didn’t deliver my letter.” May I never draw my salary again if I’m lying! Never in my life have I heard of a dog who could write. Only noblemen can write correctly. Some merchant-clerks can do it, of course, and even some serfs occasionally write a little; but their writing is mostly mechanical; no commas, full stops, or style.
This puzzled me. I confess that I have recently begun to hear and see such things from time to time as nobody else has ever seen or heard. “I’ll follow that little dog,” I said to myself, “to find out what she is about and what sort of things she’s thinking.” I unfurled my umbrella and set off after the two ladies. They crossed into Gorokhovaia (Pease) Street, turned into Meshchanskaia (Bourgeois) Street, then into Stolyarnaia (Carpenter’s) Lane and, finally, made for Kokushkin Bridge, where they stopped in front of a large house. “I know this house,” I said to myself. “This is Zverkov’s (Mr. Beast’s) house.” What a bustling hive! All sorts of people live there: so many cooks, so many Polacks! And so many of my fellow officials, like dogs, all piled one on top of another. One of my friends lives in there, he’s very good at playing the horn. The ladies went up to the fourth floor. “Fine” I thought, “I won’t go in just now, but I’ll make a note of the place and I won’t fail to take advantage of it at my first chance.”
October 4
Today is Wednesday and so I’ve been in the chief’s office. I came a little early on purpose and, sitting myself down, began to re-sharpen quills. Our director must be a very intelligent man. His room is all lined with bookshelves. I read the titles of some of them: so much erudition, such erudition that it’s all beyond the likes of me: everything is either in French or German. And if you glance at his face: whew! What importance there is in his eyes! I have never yet heard him say a superfluous word. It’s only when you hand him papers that he may ask, “What’s it like outside?”—“Damp, Your Excellency!” Yes, people like me are no match for him! He’s a statesman. But I notice that he’s particularly fond of me. If only his daughter also … oh, you rogue! … Never mind, never mind, silence! I read The Bee. What a stupid lot the French are! What do they want, eh? I’d like to give them all a damn good thrashing with the birch! I read there a very pleasant description of a ball which was written by some landowner from Kursk. Those landowners from Kursk write well. After this I noticed that it was already half past twelve and that our chief was still not out of his bedroom. But, at about half past one an event occurred which no pen could describe. The door opened. I thought it was our director and I jumped up from my chair with the papers; but it was she, she herself! Holy Saints, how she was dressed! The dress she wore was as white as a swan: whew! How sumptuous! And how she looked: a veritable ray of sunshine. She bowed and said: “Has father not been in?” Oh! Oh! Oh! What a voice! A canary, a veritable canary! “Your Excellency” I was about to say, “don’t condemn me to death, but if you wish to condemn me, then carry out the sentence with your own high-ranking hand.” But, Devil take it, I became tongue-tied and could only say: “No, ma’am.” She looked at me, at the books, and dropped her handkerchief. I rushed forward as fast as I could, slipped on the damned parquet floor and almost broke my nose, but I managed to regain my balance and picked up the handkerchief. Holy Saints, what a handkerchief! the finest cambric—ambergris, perfect ambergris! It simply reeked “general’s daughter”. She thanked me and smiled almost imperceptibly, so that her sweet lips barely moved and then she went away. I remained seated for another hour when suddenly a servant came in and said, “You can go home, Axenty Ivanovich, the master’s already left.” I cannot stand these servants: they’re always lounging about in the hall and they can’t even be bothered to nod give you a nod. And that’s not all: once, one of these curs had the nerve to offer me some snuff without getting up from his seat. Don’t you know I’m an official of noble birth, you stupid lackey? However, I took my hat and put on my greatcoat by myself, as these gentlemen will never assist you, and went out. At home I spent most of the time lying on my bed. Then I copied out some excellent little verses: Sweet Psyche for an hour I did not see,/A year this little hour seemed to me./I came to quite despise this life of mine:/ “Poor me, should I live?” I did opine. This must be Pushkin’s work. In the evening, wrapped in my greatcoat, I walked as far as the entrance to Her Excellency’s house and waited for a long time to see if she would come out and get into her carriage, so that I could get a brief glimpse at her—but no, she never appeared.
November 6
The chief got into a mean temper today. When I arrived at the office he called me in to him and began to talk to me like this: “Well, tell me, please, just what you’re doing?”—What do you mean? I’m not doing anything,” I answered. “Well, just use your loaf! You’re past forty now, y’know—time you had some sense. What’re you thinking of? Do you think I don’t know your little game? You’ve got your eye on the director’s daughter! Well, just look at you; just think; you’re a nobody, that’s all. And you don’t have a penny to your name. Just have a look at your face in the mirror; how could you even think of such a thing?” Damn it all, just because his face is like a chemist’s jar and he has a lock of hair on his head tied up in a Tatar tuft and he keeps it in its rosette shape by plastering it with pomade, he thinks he’s the only one allowed to do anything. I understand, I understand why he’s so mean to me. He’s jealous; maybe he’s noticed signs of preferential treatment being afforded to me. Well, I spit on him! A court councilor’s not so important as all that! He’s hung a gold chain on his watch, he orders boots at thirty rubles the pair—well, he can go to the Devil! Am I some low-class intellectual son of a tailor or non-commissioned officer? I’m a nobleman. And I may even get promoted. I’m still only forty-two years old—the age when one’s service career is really only just beginning. Wait, friend! We’ll make the rank of colonel yet, and perhaps, God willing, even something higher. We’ll acquire a reputation, too, and a better one than yours. What gives you the idea that you’re the only respectable gentleman? Give me a Ruchevsky dress coat, fashionably cut, and let me tie a cravat like yours around my neck—then you won’t hold a candle to me. I don’t have the wherewithal—that’s the trouble.
November 8
Went to the theater. They put on a performance of the Russian fool Filatka. Had a good laugh. There was also some vaudeville with amusing lines about lawyers, particularly about one college registrar, so freely written that I was amazed that it got past the censor, and they’re right when they talk about how merchants swindle the people and how their debauched sons are worming their way into the nobility. There was also a very amusing couplet about journalists: how they love to abuse everything and how the author begs the public for support. Writers nowadays write very amusing plays. I adore going to the theater. As soon as a penny lands in my pocket I can’t resist going. But some of my fellow officials are real swine: they definitely refuse to go to the theater, the peasants! Except perhaps if you give them a free ticket. A certain actress sang very well. I remembered about her … Oh, you rogue! … Never mind, never mind … Silence.
November 9
Set off to the office at eight o’clock. The departmental chief pretended not to notice my arrival. For my part, I, too, acted as if nothing had passed between us. I looked over and checked some papers. Left at four o’clock; walked past the director’s flat, but didn’t see anyone. After dinner spent most of the time lying on the bed.
November 11
Today I sat in the director’s office and repaired twenty-three quills for him and for her—aie! aie! … for Her Excellency, four pens. He always likes to have plenty of quills. Oh! He must be a real brain-box! He never says anything, but I think he’s always turning things over in his head. I’d like to know what he thinks of most; what goes on in that head of his. I’d like to get a closer look at the lives these gentlemen lead, the subtleties and court affairs—what they’re like, what they do in their own circle—that’s what I’d like to know! Several times I’ve thought of striking up a conversation with His Excellency, but, Devil take it, my tongue won’t obey me: I can only say that it’s cold or warm outside, and that’s absolutely all I can utter. I’d like a peek at whose open door you occasionally get a glimpse of, and through the drawing room into the next room. Oh! What sumptuous furniture! Such mirrors and porcelain! I’d love to get a peek in there, into the wing where Her Excellency lives—that’s the place for me! Into her boudoir: there are so many little jars standing there, and little bottles, such flowers that one is afraid to breathe on them; see how her dress lies thrown onto the floor, and looks more like air than a dress. I’d like to get a glimpse inside her bedroom … what wonders, I feel, must be in there, such paradise, I feel, as doesn’t even exist in heaven. I’d like a glimpse at the footstool on which she places her. foot when she gets out of bed, and watch her putting stockings on her snow white legs … Aie, aie, aie! Never mind, never mind … Silence puts a little snow-white stocking on that little foot … Aie, aie, aie! never mind, never mind … silence!
Today, however, it’s as if the light has suddenly dawned on me: I remember the conversation I heard on Nevsky Prospect between the two little dogs. “Fine,” I thought to myself, “now I’ll find out everything. I must intercept the correspondence these scraggy little dogs have been carrying on. Then I’ll be sure to learn a thing or two.” I confess, I was even on the point of calling Madgie to me once and saying, “Listen, Madgie, now we’re alone, I’ll close the door if you wish so that nobody will see us—tell me. every thing you know about the young lady, tell me what she’s like, and I swear to you I won’t tell anyone.” But the sly little dog put her tail between her legs, doubled herself up and went out through the door as quietly as if she hadn’t heard a thing. A long time ago I used to suspect that dogs were more intelligent than human beings; I was even sure they could speak, if it weren’t for a certain stubbornness inside them. They’re extremely tactful: they notice everything, every step a human being takes. No, whatever happens, tomorrow I’m off to Zverkov’s house, I’ll ask to see Fidele and, if possible, I’ll seize all the letters Madgie has written to her.
November 12
Set off at two o’clock in the afternoon to be sure of seeing Fidele and questioning her. I can’t stand the smell of cabbage which pours from all the little shops on Meshchanskaia Street; and moreover the hellish stench wafts out from under the doors of every house, so holding my nose, I ran past as fast as I could. And the grubby little artisans release so much smoke and soot from their workshops that it’s absolutely impossible for a gentleman to stroll along here. When I had made my way to the fifth floor and rung the bell, a young girl came out, not bad-looking and with tiny freckles on her face. I recognized her. This was the very same girl who had been walking along with the old woman. She blushed slightly and I immediately realized: you, my dear, are after a husband. “What do you want?” she said. “I want a word with your dog.” What a stupid girl she was! I could tell at once she was stupid! Just then the little dog came running up, barking; I tried to catch hold of it but the disgusting creature almost got its teeth into my nose. But I caught sight of its basket in the corner. That was just what I was after! I went over, rummaged about a bit in the little straw-filled wooden box and, to my great delight, pulled out a small bundle of paper. When the filthy little doggie saw this, she first of all bit me on the calf, then, when she sensed that I had taken her bits of paper, she began to whine and make up to me, but I said, “No, my dear, goodbye!”—and took to my heels. I think the young girl took me for a madman, because she was extremely frightened. As soon as I got home I wanted to get down to work sorting out these letters because my eyes are not too good in candlelight, but Mavra had taken it into her head to wash the floor. These stupid Finnish women always become house-proud at the wrong times. So I went for a stroll to give some thought to what had happened. Now, at last I’ll find out about their affairs, their thoughts and what makes them tick and I’ll get to the bottom of the matter. These letters will reveal all to me. Dogs are intelligent beings, they know all the political considerations and so everything is bound to be there: a portrait of a man and all his affairs. And there’ll be something there about her … never mind, silence! Towards evening I returned home. Most of the time I lay on my bed.
November 13
Well, we shall see! The writing is fairly distinct; at the same time there is something doggy about the handwriting. Let us read:
Dear Fidele,
I still can’t get used to your bourgeois name. Surely they could have given you a better one? Fidele, Rose—how common they sound! But that’s all by the way. I’m very glad that we thought of writing to each other.
The letter was written very correctly: the punctuation and even the “i” before “e” spelling were all correct. Even our department chief couldn’t write like this, though he talks of having been to some university. Let’s see what else there is:
It seems to me that sharing one’s thoughts, feelings, and impressions with another is one of the greatest blessings on earth.
Hm! That idea was taken from a work translated from German. I don’t remember the title.
I say this from experience, though I’ve been no further than the door of our house. Is my life not passing in a pleasurable way? My mistress, whom Papa calls Sophie, loves me to distraction.
Aie, aie! never mind, never mind! Silence!
Papa is also very affectionate. I drink tea and coffee with cream. Oh, ma chère, I must tell you that I get no pleasure at all from the big chewed bones which our Polkan devours in the kitchen. The bones of game are the only tasty ones, and then only when nobody has sucked all the marrow out of them. It’s very nice to mix several sauces together, but only if there are no capers or greens mixed in; but I know of nothing worse than the usual habit of giving dogs rolled-up balls of bread. A gentleman sits at a table and begins to crush up the bread with his hands, which have been in contact with all sorts of garbage, calls you over and thrusts the little ball into your teeth. It’s improper to refuse, so you eat it, it’s nauseating, but you eat it …
What the Devil’s all this! What rubbish! As though there was nothing better to write about. Let’s have a look at another page. There may be something a bit more sensible.
I should be delighted to keep you informed about what happens here. I’ve already told you something about the most important man here, the one Sophie calls Papa. He’s a very strange man.
Ah! At last! Yes, I knew: they look at everything from a political angle. Let’s see what Papa is like:
… a very strange man. He doesn’t say very much. He very rarely speaks; but a week ago he was talking to himself constantly, saying: “Will I get it or won’t I?” He would take a slip of paper in one hand, then clench the empty one and say to me, “Will I get it or won’t I?” Once he put the question to me, “What do you think, Madgie? Will I get it or won’t I?” I couldn’t understand a single thing; I just sniffed his boots, then walked away. Then, ma chère, Papa came in a week later feeling on top of the world. All that morning uniformed gentlemen called on him and congratulated him about something. At the table he was more exuberant than I had ever seen him, cracking jokes, and after dinner he lifted me up to his neck and said: “See, Madgie, what’s this?” I could see some sort of ribbon. I sniffed at it, but I couldn’t detect any aroma; finally I gave it a sly lick: a bit salty.
Hm, I think this little cur is too … so she won’t get whipped! So, he’s ambitious! I’ll make a note of that.
Goodbye, ma chère, I must be off … etc…. etc. I’ll finish the letter tomorrow. Well, hello! Now I’m back with you. Today my mistress Sophie …
Ah! well, let’s see what Sophie’s like. Oh! Canaille … All right, all right … we’ll continue.
… my mistress Sophie was in terrible confusion. She was getting ready to go to a ball, and I was glad because I would be able to write to you while she was away. My Sophie greatly enjoys going to a ball, although she always gets angry while she’s getting dressed. I just cannot understand, ma chère, how anyone can derive pleasure from going to a ball. Sophie always gets back home from a ball at six o’clock in the morning, and I can nearly always tell by her pale, drawn look if she wasn’t given anything to eat there, the poor thing. I must admit that I could never live like that. If I didn’t get my grouse and gravy or roast chicken wings … well, I don’t know what would happen to me. That gravy goes well with porridge, too, but carrots or turnips, or artichokes will never taste good …
Extraordinary unevenness of style. It’s immediately obvious that it wasn’t written by a human being. It starts off all right but finishes in a canine style. Let’s have a look at another little note. A longish one. Hm! And there’s no date on it.
Oh, my dear, one can feel the approach of spring now. My heart is thumping as if in expectation of something. There’s a constant noise in my ears so that I frequently stand with one paw in the air, listening at the door for several minutes. I’ll confess to you that I have a number of suitors. I often watch them from the window. Oh! If only you knew what monsters some of them are. One is a very unprepossessing common mongrel, frightfully stupid, there’s even stupidity written all over his face, and he walks along the street with such an air of importance and he imagines he’s a very upper-class individual, and that everybody else is looking at him. Not a bit of it, I paid no attention to him at all; just as if I didn’t see him. But there’s such a terrifying Great Dane who comes and stops in front of my window! If it were to stand on its hind legs—which I don’t think the lout could do—then he’d be a head taller than my Sophie’s papa, who is fairly tall and of ample proportions. That numbskull must be frightfully cheeky. I growled at him but it didn’t bother him one bit. He hardly frowned! He thrust out his tongue, dangled his huge ears and stared in through the window—a real clod! But surely you don’t think, ma chère, that my heart is indifferent to all requests—ah, no … If only you had seen a certain cavalier, named Trésor, climbing over my neighbor’s wall. Ah! Ma chère, what a nice little snout he has!
Hell! What rubbish! How can anyone fill letters with such … nonsense? Give me the man! I want to see the man; I demand food of the sort which will feed and delight my soul; but instead, such nonsense … let’s turn over the page to see if it’s any better:
Sophie was sitting at the little table sewing something. I was looking out of the window, as I like to watch the people walking past. Suddenly, in came the servant and said “Teplov!”—“Ask him in,” said Sophie, as she rushed to embrace me. “Ah, Madgie, Madgie! If only you knew who this is: he’s a dark-haired gentleman-of-the-bedchamber, and what eyes he’s got! They’re dark and bright, like fire.” And Sophie ran off to her room. A minute later a young gentleman-of-the-bedchamber with dark side-whiskers came in, walked over to the mirror, tidied his hair and surveyed the room. I began to growl and sat in my usual place. Sophie soon appeared and curtseyed gaily to his shuffling; and I continued to look out of the window, pretending not to notice anything; however, I did incline my head slightly to one side in an attempt to hear what they were talking about. Oh, ma chère! What nonsense they were talking. They were discussing how a certain lady had made a wrong step at a dance; also how a certain Bobov in his jabots looked like a stork and had almost fallen over, and how a certain Lidina thought her eyes were light blue, when all the time they were green—things like that. “How could one possibly compare the gentleman-of-the-bedchamber with Tresor?” I thought to myself. Heavens! What a difference! In the first place, the gentleman-of-the-bedchamber has a completely smooth, broad face encircled by side-whiskers as if he had tied a black kerchief around it; but Tresor has such a slender snout and a bald patch right on his forehead. You couldn’t compare Tresor’s waist with the gentleman-of-the-bedchamber’s. And his eyes, his ways and his manners are all wrong. Oh, what a difference! I don’t know, ma chère, what she sees in her Teplov. Why does she admire him so much?
I think myself that there’s something wrong here. It’s not possible for her to be so fascinated by this gentleman-of-the-bedchamber. Let’s see what’s next:
I think if she finds that gentleman-of-the-bedchamber attractive then she’ll soon be attracted to that official who sits in Papa’s office. Oh, ma chère, if only you knew what a monster he is. A real tortoise in a sack …
Who could this official be?
He has a really strange surname. He’s always sitting repairing quills. The hair on his head looks very much like hay. Papa always sends him in place of a servant.
I think the filthy little cur means me. How have I got hair like straw?
Sophie simply cannot restrain herself from laughing when she looks at him.
You lie, you damned little cur! What a nasty tongue! As though I didn’t know this is the result of jealousy. As though I didn’t know whose jokes these are. These are the departmental director’s jokes. The man, you know, has vowed implacable hatred and so he keeps on hurting me at every step. But let’s look at just one more letter. There, perhaps, the matter will be explained.
Ma chère Fidele, excuse me for not writing for so long. I have been in absolute ecstasy. A certain writer was quite justified in saying that love is a second life. Moreover, there have been a great many changes in our house. The gentleman-of-the-bedchamber comes around every day now. Sophie loves him to distraction. Papa is very happy. I’ve even heard from Gregory, who sweeps the floor and nearly always talks to himself, that the marriage will take place soon; because Papa definitely wants to see Sophie marry either a general or a gentleman-of-the-bedchamber or an army colonel …
Damn and blast! I can’t read any further … It’s all about gentlemen-of-the-bedchamber or generals. It’s always the gentlemen-of-the-bedchamber or the generals who get the best things in this world. If you come across some meager treasure and you think it’s within your grasp—some gentleman-of-the-bedchamber or general will seize it from you. Damn it all! I wish I could become a general: not just to win her hand and everything, no, I’d like to see them grovel and perform all these different court pranks and subtleties, and then tell them: I spit on you both. Damn it all. It’s annoying! I tore the stupid cur’s letters into tiny shreds.
December 3
It cannot be. Nonsense! There can’t be a marriage! What if he is a gentleman-of the-bedchamber? It’s nothing but a rank, you know: it’s not a visible object you can take hold of. Just because he ‘s a gentleman-of-the-bedchamber doesn’t mean he’s got a third eye in his forehead. His nose isn’t made of gold, you know, it’s just the same as mine or anybody else’s; he sniffs with it but he doesn’t eat with it, he sneezes but he doesn’t cough with it. Several times now I’ve tried to fathom how all these differences arise. Why am I a titular councilor, and for what reason am I a titular councilor? Perhaps I’m some count or general and only think I’m a titular councilor? Perhaps I don’t know what I am. How many examples have there been in history: some ordinary man, not even a nobleman, but just some petty bourgeois or even a peasant, and suddenly it’s discovered that he’s a grandee and sometimes even the monarch. If a peasant can sometimes turn out to be something like that, then what could a nobleman turn out to be? Suddenly, let’s suppose, I walk in wearing a general’s uniform: on my right shoulder there is an epaulette and on my left shoulder there’s an epaulette, across my shoulder there’s a light blue ribbon—what then? What song would my beauty sing then? And what would Papa himself, our director, say? Oh, there’s an ambitious man! He’s a Mason, he’s a Mason through and through; although he pretends to be this that and the other I noticed at once, he was a Mason: if he shakes hands with anyone he only offers two fingers. So why should I not this very minute be promoted to governor-general or a quartermaster or something like that? I should like to know why I’m a titular councilor? Why exactly a titular councilor?
December 5
I spent all this morning reading the newspapers. Strange things are going on in Spain. Even I can’t understand them. They write that the throne is vacant and that the nobles are in a difficult position about choosing an heir and because of this riots have broken out. It seems extremely strange to me. How can you have a vacant throne? They say some donna or other must ascend to the throne. You can’t have a donna ascending to the throne. It’s not possible. You have to have a king on the throne. Yes, they say, there’s no king, it’s impossible to be without a king. A state cannot be without a king. The king exists, but he’s just lying low somewhere. It’s quite possible that he’s staying away for family or other reasons, or because the threat of neighboring powers like France and other lands forces him to stay in hiding, or there may be other reasons.
December 8
I had every intention of going to the office, but various reasons and reflections kept me from doing so. I still can’t get the Spanish affairs out of my mind. How could a donna possibly become a queen? It would never be allowed. And, in the first place, England wouldn’t allow it. Then there are the political affairs of all Europe: the Austrian emperor, our monarch … I confess that these events have mortified and shaken me to such an extent that I haven’t been able to settle down to do anything all day. Mavra passed the remark that I was extremely distracted at dinner. And certainly I did, I think, throw two plates onto the floor, absent-mindedly, and they smashed there and then. After dinner I went down the hills. I gained nothing instructive out of that. I spent most of the time lying on my bed and pondered the affairs of Spain.
Year 2000, April 43rd
Today is the day of greatest celebration. There’s a king in Spain. He has been found. I am this king. And I only found out about it this very day. I confess it struck me like lightning. I don’t understand how I could think or imagine that I was a titular councilor. How could that ridiculous idea have got into my head? It’s a good thing nobody thought of putting me in a lunatic asylum. Now everything is revealed to me. Now I see it all as if spread out on the palm of my hand. But I couldn’t understand it till now; everything till now has been in a sort of haze. And I think that it all stems from people imagining that the human brain is in the head; not at all: it’s borne on the wind from the direction of the Caspian Sea. First of all I explained to Mavra who I am. When she heard that the King of Spain was standing in front of her, she threw up her hands and almost died of horror. She, the stupid woman, had never even seen the King of Spain. I, however, tried to calm her and with kind words tried to assure her of my benevolence, and that I was not at all angry at her for having sometimes cleaned my boots so badly. But these are ignorant folk. One should not talk to them about such elevated matters. She took fright because she is convinced that all the kings of Spain are like Philip II. But I was able to convince her that there was no similarity between me and Philip and that I don’t possess a single Capuchin monk … I did not go to the office … To the Devil with that! No, friends, don’t lure me there; I’m not going to start copying out your filthy papers.
Martober 86th.
Between day and night.
Today our executor came round to get me to go to the office, as I have not been to work for over three weeks. I did go to the office for a joke. The department head thought I would bow to him and start apologizing, but I looked at him indifferently, not too angrily and not too favorably, and I sat down in my place, as if I hadn’t noticed anybody. I glanced at all the office scum and thought: “If only you knew who is sitting among you … Heavens above! What a commotion you would cause, and the department head himself would start bowing from the waist as he now bows to the director …” They placed some papers in front of me so that I could make a précise of them. But I didn’t lift a finger. A few minutes later things started to get busy. Someone said the director was coming. Many of the officials hurried to outdo each other and show off in front of him. But I stayed put. When he was walking past our department, everyone buttoned up their coats; but I did absolutely nothing! So he’s the director! Am I supposed to stand in his presence—never! What sort of a director is he? He’s a cork, not a director. An ordinary cork, a simple cork, nothing more. The sort you cork up bottles with. But for me the funniest thing was when they shoved papers at me to copy out. They thought I would write on the very bottom of the page: “such-and-such” or “head clerk”. How could it be otherwise? But in the most important place, where the department head signs, I scribbled “FERDINAND VIII.” You should have seen the respectful silence which reigned; but I just waved my hand, saying: “Such signs of allegiance are not necessary!”—and went out. I went straight from there to the director’s flat. He was not at home. The servant didn’t want to let me in, but I said such things to him that he just threw up his hands. I made straight for the dressing room. She was sitting in front of the mirror, she jumped up and backed away from me. I did not, however, tell her that I was the King of Spain. I merely told her that happiness awaited her of a kind she could never imagine, and that, despite my enemies’ machinations, we would be together. That was all I wished to say and went out. Oh, they’re cunning creatures, women! I have only just grasped what a woman is. Until now nobody had found out who she was in love with. I’m the first to discover it: womankind is in love with the Devil. Yes, no joking, scientists write nonsense saying a woman is this or that—but she loves nobody but the Devil. You can see her in a first-tier box adjusting her lorgnette. You think she is looking at that fat man wearing a star? Not at all, she’s looking at the Devil standing behind him. Now he’s concealed himself in the fat man’s star. Now he’s beckoning to her with his finger! And she’ll marry him. She will. And they’re all alike, their fathers the officials, all alike; they play up to anyone and everyone and grovel at court, calling themselves patriots: but it’s dividends, dividends that these patriots are after. They’d sell their own mother, father and God for money, ambitious men they are! Traitors! It’s all because of ambition, ambition which comes from having a tiny pimple under the tongue and in it a little worm no bigger than a pinhead, and the person behind all this is a certain barber who lives on Gorokhovaia Street. I don’t remember his name; but it’s a well-known fact that he and a certain midwife want to spread Mohammedanism throughout the world, and that’s why, they say, most people in France profess the Mohammedan faith.
No date.
The day had no number.
Walked incognito along Nevsky Prospect. His Majesty the Tsar drove past. Everyone took off his cap, and I also; but I gave no sign that I was the King of Spain. I considered it improper to reveal myself suddenly in the presence of all the others, because my esteemed peer would surely ask me why the King of Spain had not yet presented himself in court. And indeed one should first present oneself to the court. The only thing stopping me was that I still don’t possess any clothing suitable for a king. If only I could lay my hands on some regalia. I’d like to order it from a tailor, but they’re such asses, and moreover, they’re so careless with their work, and they’ve gone in for speculating and most of them are now laying paving stones for a living. I decided to make regalia out of a new uniform which I had worn only twice. But to avoid having it ruined by those rogues I decided to make it myself, with the door locked, so nobody would see. I cut the whole thing up with scissors, because the cut has to be completely different and the fabric had to give a look of ermine tails.
I don’t remember the date. Nor was there any month.
Devil only knows when it was.
My regalia is all ready and made up. Mavra cried out when I put it on. However, I still have no intention of making an appearance at court. There have not yet been any deputations from Spain. It’s not done to go without any deputies. No importance would be attached to my rank. I await them by the hour.
I am surprised at the exceptional tardiness of the deputies. What could be the reason for the hold-up? Surely it’s not France? Yes, that’s the most malicious of Powers. I went to the post office to check if the Spanish deputies had arrived. But the postmaster is extremely stupid; he doesn’t know anything: no, he says there are no Spanish deputies here, but if you would care to write any letters then we’ll follow the established procedures. Devil take them all! What good would a letter do? Letters are rubbish. Apothecaries write letters …
Madrid. February thirtieth.
So, I’m in Spain, and it happened so quickly that it’s hardly dawned on me yet. The Spanish deputies came to me this morning and I got into a carriage with them. The unusual speed seemed strange to me. We traveled so fast that we reached the Spanish border in half an hour. But of course there are railroads everywhere in Europe now and the locomotives move with such extraordinary speed. Spain is a strange land: when we entered the first room I saw a lot of people with their heads shaved. But I guessed that these must have been either the Dominicans or Capuchins, because they shave their heads. The State Chancellor’s behavior seemed very strange to me as he led me by the hand; he pushed me into a small room and said: “Sit here, and if you refer to yourself as King Ferdinand again then I’ll beat the notion out of you.” But I, realizing that this was only a test, answered negatively—for which the Chancellor thumped me across the back a couple of times with a stick so hard that I almost cried out, but I restrained myself, remembering that this was a custom of chivalry on elevation to a high rank, because in Spain the customs of chivalry are preserved even today. When I was left alone I decided to get down to the affairs of State. I discovered that China and Spain are one and the same country and it is only through ignorance that they are considered separate states. I advise everyone to deliberately write the word “Spain” on a piece of paper, and it will always come out as “China.” But I was particularly grieved by an event which takes place tomorrow. Tomorrow at seven o’clock a strange event will occur: the earth will land on the moon. The famous English chemist Wellington has written about this. I confess that I felt my heart tremble when I thought about the unusual softness and fragility of the moon. The moon, you know, is usually made in Hamburg; and very badly made as well. I find it surprising that England has paid any attention to all this. A lame cooper makes it and its obvious that the fool doesn’t know a thing about the moon. He mixed in a tarred rope and one part of lamp-oil; and that’s why there’s such an awful smell over the whole earth that it’s necessary to hold one’s nose. And because of this the moon itself is such a tender ball that people could never live on it, and now only a few noses live there. And it’s for that same reason that we cannot see our own noses, because they’re all on the moon. And when I thought of how heavy an article the world is and how it would grind our noses into flour, then I was overcome with such anxiety that, putting on my socks and shoes, I dashed into the hall of the state council with the intention of ordering the police not to let the earth land on the moon. The Capuchins, whom I encountered in great number in the State council hall, were very intelligent people and when I said, “Gentlemen, let us save the moon, because the earth is going to land on it,” they all rushed to carry out my royal wishes, and many of them began to climb up the wall in an attempt to catch the moon; but at that moment in came the High Chancellor. Seeing him, they all dispersed in great haste. I, as King, was the only one who stayed. But the Chancellor, to my surprise, hit me with a stick and chased me back to my room. Such is the power of national customs in Spain!
January of the Same Year, coming after February
So far I have not been able to understand what sort of a country Spain is. The national traditions and the customs of the court are quite extraordinary. I can’t understand it, I can’t understand it, I absolutely can’t understand it. Today they shaved my head, although I shouted at the top of my voice that I didn’t want to become a monk. But I can’t even remember what happened afterward when they poured cold water on my head. I have never endured such hell. I was almost going frantic, so that they had difficulty in holding me. I cannot understand the meaning of this strange custom. It’s a stupid, senseless practice! The lack of good sense in the kings who have not abolished it to this day is beyond my comprehension. Judging from all the circumstances, I wonder whether I have not fallen into the hands of the Inquisition, and whether the man I took to be the Grand Chancellor isn’t the Grand Inquisitor. But I cannot understand how a king can be subject to the Inquisition. It can only be through the influence of France, especially of Polignac. Oh, that beast of a Polignac! He has sworn to harm me to the death. And he pursues me and pursues me; but I know, my friend, that you are the tool of England. The English are great politicians. They poke their noses into everything. All the world knows that when England takes a pinch of snuff, France sneezes.
The twenty-fifth
Today the Grand Inquisitor came to my room, but I heard his footsteps in the distance and hid under the chair. When he saw that I was not there be began to shout. At first he shouted, “Poprishchin”—I didn’t say a word. Then: “Axenty Ivanov! Titular Councillor! Nobleman!” I still kept silent. “Ferdinand VIII, King of Spain!” I was about to thrust out my head, but then thought: “No, brother, you don’t fool me! We know you: you’ll be pouring water on my head again.” But he saw me and chased me from behind the chair with his stick. That blasted stick hurts a great deal. But I was repaid for all this by a discovery I made yesterday: I found out that every cock has its Spain and it’s situated under its feathers. The Grand Inquisitor, however, went away fuming and threatening me with all sorts of punishment. But I scorned his impotent malice, knowing that he was acting like a machine, like a tool of the Englishman.
34 yraurbeF Yrae 349
No, I don’t have the strength to take any more. Lord! What are they doing to me! They pour cold water on my head! They won’t listen to me, they don’t see me, won’t hear me. What have I done to them? What are they torturing me for? What do they want from me, wretch that I am? What can I give them? I have nothing. I have no strength, I can’t take their tortures, my head is burning, and everything is swimming before my eyes. Save me! take me! Give me three horses as swift as a whirlwind! Get in, coachman; ring, my little bell; dash on, horses, and take me from this world. Further, further till I can see nothing, nothing. The sky whirls before me; a little star twinkles in the distance; the forest rushes past with its dark trees and the moon; a gray mist stretches out beneath my feet; a chord resounds in the mist; on one side the sea, on the other Italy; over there you can see the cottages of Russia. Is that my home in the blue distance? Is my mother sitting by the window? Mother, save your wretched son! Shed a tear on his aching head! See how they are torturing him! Take your wretched orphan to your breast! There’s nowhere for him on earth! They’re persecuting him! Mother! Take pity on your sick child! … And do you know that the Dey of Algiers has a pimple right under his nose?
(1835) Translated by A. Tulloch, revised by A.L. and M.T.K.
I
On the 25th of March an extraordinarily strange event took place in St. Petersburg. Ivan Yakovlevich the barber, residing on Voznesensky [Ascension] Prospect (his surname has been lost, and even on his sign—which depicts a gentleman with his cheek well-soaped and an inscription: Blood let as well—there is nothing more) the barber Ivan Yakovlevich awoke rather early and smelled the aroma of baking bread. Raising himself up a little in bed, he saw that his wife, a rather imposing woman very fond of her coffee, was removing from the oven some freshly-baked loaves.
“Today, Praskovia Osipovna, I will not have coffee,” said Ivan Yakovlevich. “But instead I would like to have some hot bread with some onions.” (That is to say, Ivan Yakovlevich would have liked to have both one and the other, but he knew it was quite impossible to request two things at once: Praskovia Osipovna had a great dislike for such caprices.) “Let the fool eat bread: all the better for me,” his spouse thought. “There’ll be an extra cup of coffee.” And she tossed a loaf onto the table.
For propriety’s sake Ivan Yakovlevich donned his tail-coat over his shirt and, sitting down at the table, he poured out the salt, peeled the two small globelets of onion, took up the knife and, assuming a deliberate air, cut into the load. Having cut it in two, he glanced inside and, to his surprise, saw something whitish. Ivan Yakovlevich gave a careful prod with the knife and poked the inside with a finger: “Something solid!—he said to himself—what would that be now?”
He thrust his fingers into the bread and pulled out—a nose! … Ivan Yakovlevich’s heart sank; he rubbed his eyes and felt the object: it was a nose, a nose and nothing else! And what’s more, he felt it was somehow familiar. Horror etched itself on Ivan Yakovlevich’s face. But that horror was nothing compared to the indignation that seized his spouse.
—You beast, where ever did you cut off that nose?—she cried out angrily.—Crook! Drunkard! I’ll report you to the police myself. You bandit! I’ve heard from three different people that when you shave them you pull on their noses so hard they barely stay put.
But Ivan Yakovlevich was more dead than alive. He had recognized that this nose belonged to none other than the collegiate assessor Kovalev, whom he shaved on Wednesdays and Sundays.
—Wait, Praskovia Osipovna! Once I’ve wrapped it up in a rag I’ll put it here, in the corner: let it lie there for a bit; later on I’ll take it outside.
—I won’t hear of it! Am I to have a cut-off nose lying about in my room? … You over-baked crust! All you can just about manage nowadays is to strop your razor, but soon you won’t be up to doing your duties, you strumpet, scoundrel! Why should I have to answer for you to the police? … Ah you bungler, stupid log! Get it out of here! Out! Take it wherever you want! Just so I don’t get a whiff of it again!
Ivan Yakovlevich stood like one struck dumb. He thought and thought—and couldn’t decide what to think. “Devil only knows how it happened,—he said finally, scratching behind his ear. Drunk or not drunk, how I came home last night I can’t tell for sure. But by all the signs something incredible has happened: because bread is a baked good, but a nose is something else entirely. I can’t make it out! …” Ivan Yakovlevich fell silent. The thought that the police would discover the nose in his possession and would accuse him frightened into a complete stupor. He could already picture the scarlet collar with its handsome silver embroidery, the saber … and he trembled from head to foot. Finally he found his smock and his boots, put on all this tattered get-up and, to the accompanying severe admonitions of Praskovia Osipovna, wrapped up the nose in a rag and went out unto the street.
He tried to hide it somewhere; in a bin or by a gate, or, just as if by accident, to drop it and duck down a side street. But unfortunately he kept meeting up with this acquaintance or that, who’d set right in with questions: “Where are you off to?” or “Who’re you going to shave this early in the day?” So that Ivan Yakovlevich could not seize his moment. Once he did actually manage to drop it, but from down the street the constable pointed at him with his halberd and said: “Pick that up! You dropped something over there!” And Ivan Yakovlevich had to pick up the nose and hide it in his pocket. Despair seized him, all the more so since the crowd was increasing as stores and shops began to open.
He decided to go to St. Isaac’s Bridge: mightn’t it be possible to hurl it into the Neva? … But I’m to a certain degree at fault here, in that up to this point I’ve told you nothing of Ivan Yakovlevich, in many respects an estimable man.
Ivan Yakovlevich, like any proper Russian artisan, was a terrible drunkard. And although he shaved others’ chins every day, his own remained eternally unshaven. Ivan Yakovlevich’s tail-coat (Ivan Yakovlevich never wore a frock coat) was piebald; that is, it had been once black, but had come out all over in brownish-yellow and gray splotches; the collar was shiny with grease; and instead of three buttons there was only one hanging by a thread. Ivan Yakovlevich was a great cynic and when collegiate assessor Kovalev would say, as he usually did when being shaved: “Ivan Yakovlevich, your hands always stink!” then Ivan Yakovlevich would respond with a question: “Why should they stink?”—I don’t know, my good fellow, but stink they do,” the collegiate assessor would reply,—and Ivan Yakovlevich, taking a pinch of snuff, would retaliate for this by lathering not only Kovalev’s cheeks but under his nose and behind his ear and under his beard, in a word wherever he took a fancy to.
This estimable citizen had reached St. Isaac’s Bridge. First he looked all around; then he leant on the balustrade as if looking under the bridge: perhaps to see if many schools of fish were running, and he quietly tossed in the rag with the nose. He felt was if a hundred-weight had fallen from his shoulders: Ivan Yakovlevich even laughed. Instead of setting off to shave clerkly chins, he headed for an establishment with the designation “Comestibles and Tea” to demand a glass of punch, when suddenly he noticed at the end of the bridge a constable of noble appearance, with sweeping side-whiskers, in a tricorne hat, with a saber. He froze; meanwhile the constable pointed to him and said:
—You come here, my good fellow!
Ivan Yakovlevich, knowing the proper forms, took off his hat when he was still at a distance and approaching smartly, said:
—Good health to your honor!
—No, no, sunshine, I’m not your honor: tell us, what were you doing out there on the bridge?
—God is my witness, sir, I was on my way to give a shave and just looked over to see if the river was flowing fast.
—That’s a lie, a lie! You’re not going to wiggle out with that one. Be so good as to answer!
—I’m ready to shave your grace twice a week, or even three times, no strings attached,—answered Ivan Yakovlevich.
—No, chum, that’s nothing to me. I’ve got three barbers who come to shave me and what’s more they take it for a great honor. But you just be so good as to tell me what you were doing out there?
Ivan Yakovlevich grew pale … But here events become completely enveloped in mist and what happened further is absolutely unknown.
2.
Collegiate assessor Kovalev awoke rather early and made the sound “brrr …” with his lips, which he always did when he woke up, although he himself couldn’t explain why. Kovalev stretched, asked for the small mirror which stood on the table. He wanted to look at a pimple which had surfaced on his nose the evening before; but with the very greatest astonishment he saw that in place of his nose there was a completely smooth expanse! Frightened, Kovalev asked for water and wiped his eyes: just so, no nose! He began to feel about with his fingers in order to find out: wasn’t he asleep? It seemed he was not. Collegiate Assessor Kovalev leapt out of bed and shook himself: no nose! He immediately ordered that he be dressed and off he flew to the police chief’s.
But in the meanwhile I must a tell bit about Kovalev so that the reader might see what sort of collegiate assessor this was. Collegiate assessors who attain that rank with the help of academic certificates are in no way comparable with those collegiate assessors who’ve come up in the Caucasus. These are two completely different species. The erudite collegiate assessors … But Russia is such a bizarre land that whatever you say of one collegiate assessor will inevitably be taken personally by every collegiate assessor from Riga to the Kamchatka. You can count on the same from all callings and ranks.—Kovalev was a Caucasus collegiate assessor. He had only attained the rank two years ago and was therefore unable to forget it for a moment; and in order to give himself more nobility and weight he never called himself a collegiate assessor, but always a major. “Listen, dearie,—he would often say when he met a woman selling shirt-fronts on the street—you come to my house: my rooms are on Sadovaia [Garden Street]; just ask: is this Major Kovalev’s—anyone will show you.” Yet if he met with a pretty one he would give her additional, secret, instructions, adding: “You just ask, darling, for Major Kovalev’s place.”—For this reason we too will in the future call this collegiate assessor the major.
Major Kovalev had the daily habit of strolling along Nevsky Prospect. The collar of his shirtfront was always extraordinarily white and well-starched. His side whiskers were of the type one can still observe on provincial land surveyors, architects, and regimental surgeons, also on those fulfilling certain constabulary duties and, in general, on men who boast plump, ruddy cheeks and are very good at playing the game of boston: these whiskers grow right up to the midpoint of the cheek and go straight across to the nose. Major Kovalev customarily wore numerous cornelian fobs, both the kind with heraldic crests and the kind with incised inscriptions: Wednesday, Thursday, Monday, and so forth. Major Kovalev had come to Petersburg out of need, namely the need to find a position suitable to his rank: if possible, a vice-governorship, failing that, the executor of some important department or other. Major Kovalev was also not averse to marriage; but only under such circumstances as would bring him a bride with two hundred thousand in capital. And therefore now the reader can judge for himself the position in which this Major found himself when he saw, in place of his rather handsome and well-proportioned nose, a most idiotic, flat, and smooth spot.
To make things worse, not a single cab appeared on the street, and he was forced to go on foot, wrapping himself up in his cloak and swathing his face in his handkerchief, as if he had a nosebleed. “But perhaps it was just my imagination: a nose just can’t vanish in some stupid accident.” He stepped into a pastry-shop to look in a mirror. Fortunately, there was no one in the shop; boys were sweeping up the rooms and moving the chairs about; others with sleep eyes were carrying out trays of hot pirozhki; on the table and chairs were scattered yesterday’s papers, stained with coffee. “Well thank heavens there’s no one here,—he said,—now I can have a look.” Timidly he approached the mirror and looked: “Damn it, what rubbish is this!—he spat …—If there were now something there in place of the nose, but for there just to be nothing at all! …”
He bit his lips in irritation, left the pastry-shop and decided that, contrary to his usual habit, he would not look at anyone and not smile at anyone either. He came to a sudden halt, as if rooted to the ground, at the doors of a certain house: before his very eyes and event took place which was totally inexplicable: a carriage pulled up to the portico; its doors opened; a gentleman in uniform, bent over, jumped out and ran up the stairs. Imagine the horror and with it the amazement of Kovalev as he recognized that this was his own nose! With this extraordinary sight it seemed to Kovalev that everything went topsy-turvy; he felt himself barely able to stand but, trembling all over as if in delirium, decided that come what may he would want for the gentleman to return to his carriage. In two minutes the nose in fact did come out. He was in a uniform embroidered in gold thread with a tall standing collar; he wore suede breeches; there was a sword at his side. From his plumed hat one deduced that he held the rank of state councilor. All in all it was clear that he had been paying a visit. He looked both ways, called to the coachman “Drive on!” took his seat and drove off.
Poor Kovalev nearly lost his mind. He had no notion what to think about such a strange event. How was it even possible that his nose which only yesterday had been on his face and could not ride in a carriage or walk,—be wearing a uniform? He ran after the carriage which, fortunately, had not driven far but had stopped in front of Kazan Cathedral.
Kovalev rushed into the Cathedral, making his way past the ranks of beggar women with their faces swathed in rags and two holes for the eyes, at which he used to laugh heartily, and entered the church. There were few worshippers inside; they all stood near the entry doors. Kovalev felt himself in such a state of consternation that he was utterly unable to pray, and he darted his gaze about looking for the gentleman in every corner. Finally he saw him, off to one side. The nose had completely concealed his face in his tall standing collar and with an air of the very greatest piety was saying his prayers.
“How can I approach him?—thought Kovalev—All the signs, his uniform, his hat, make it clear that he’s a state councilor. Devil only known how it’s to be done!”
He began to cough in the gentleman’s vicinity: but the nose did not for a moment abandon his pious demeanor, and made deep bows.
—Gracious sir …—said Kovalev, mentally forcing himself to take courage,—gracious sir …
—What is it you want?—replied the nose, turning.
—I find it strange, gracious sir … I feel … you must know your place. And then I come upon you, and where?—in church. You must agree …
—Excuse me but I can make nothing of what you say … Explain yourself
“How am I to explain things to him?” thought Kovalev, and, with a deep breath, he began:
—Of course I … in fact, I am a major. For me to go about with no nose, you must agree, this is inappropriate. Some sort of market-woman selling sliced oranges on Vosnesensky bridge, she can do without a nose; but given my expectations … and moreover being acquainted with ladies in many respectable homes: Chekhtyreva the state counselor’s wife, and others … Judge for yourself … I don’t know, gracious sir … (at this point Major Kovalev shrugged his shoulders) … Excuse me … if you look at this in the light of the laws of duty and honor.. you yourself can understand …
—I understand absolutely nothing at all,—replied the nose.—Explain yourself in a more satisfactory way.
—Gracious sir …—said Kovalev with a sense of his own dignity,—I don’t know how to take your words … Everything about this affair is, I think perfectly obvious … Or do you mean to say … After all, you’re my personal nose!
The nose looked at the major and slightly knit his brows.
—You are mistaken, gracious sir. I am a person in my own right. There can be no close relationship between us. Judging by the buttons on your uniform, you must serve in the Senate or, at least, somewhere in the judiciary. I am in the academic service.—With these words the nose turned away and continued his devotions.
Kovalev was completely confounded, with no idea what to do or even what to think. At that moment he heard the pleasant rustle of a lady’s gown: an elderly lady approached, all decked out in lace, and with her was a slender miss, in a white dress that delineated her slender figure very prettily, wearing a straw hat light as a cream-puff. Behind them waited a tall footman with immense sideburns and fully a dozen capes to his coat, who flicked open his snuff-box.
Kovalev edged nearer, tugged at the batiste collar of his shirt-front, put the seals on his gold watch chain in good order and, looking about him with a smile, turned his attention to the delicate young lady who, like a spring blossom, had slightly bowed her head and raised to her brow her small white hand with its semi-translucent fingers. The smile on Kovalev’s face broadened even more when beneath her hat-brim he caught a glimpse of her small, round, snow-white chin and a bit of her cheek, flushed with the tint of the first rose of spring. But suddenly he leapt back as if scorched. He had remembered that where his nose should be he had nothing at all, and tears started from his eyes. He turned, intending to tell the uniformed gentleman straight out the her was only pretending to be a state counselor, that he was a buffoon and a scoundrel and that he was nothing more than Kovalev’s own nose … But the nose was gone: he had managed to dash off, very likely to pay someone else a call.
This sent Kovalev into despair. He retraced his steps and stood for a minute beneath the colonnade looking carefully in all directions for a glimpse of the nose. He remembered very clearly that the nose’s hat had had a plume and his uniform gold embroidery; but he hadn’t noticed the greatcoat, nor the color of his carriage or horses, or even if there had been any sort of footman, and in what sort of livery. And then there were so many carriages rushing to and fro with such speed that it was difficult to pick one out; but if he did manage to pick it out he had no means of stopping it. It was a lovely sunny day, There was a swarm of people on Nevsky; an absolute floral waterfall of ladies flowed along every inch of sidewalk from the Politseisky [Police] Bridge to the Anichkin. And just there was a court counselor of his acquaintance, whom Kovalev would address as “lieutenant” especially if they happened to be in the presence of others. And there was Yaryzhkin, head clerk of the senate, a great friend of his, who at boston always got into difficulties when he played the eight. And there another major who had received his assessorship in the Caucasus was waving at Kovalev, beckoning him over …
—O damn it all!—said Kovalev.—Hey, driver, take me straight to the chief of police!
Kovalev got into the droshky and to the coachman shouted only: “Go hell for leather!”
—Is the police chief in?—he cried, entering the reception.
—No,—responded the private secretary,—he’s just left.
—A fine thing!
—Yes,—added the secretary,—not so long ago either, but he did leave.
If you’d come a minute earlier maybe you would have caught him in.
Kovalev, without lowering his handkerchief from his face, got into his droshky and cried in a despairing voice: “Drive on!”
—Where?—said the driver.
—Straight ahead!
—How do you mean, straight ahead? The road turns: left or right?
The question gave Kovalev pause and forced him to think once more. It his position it was better to set off directly for the police station, not because it was directly connected to the police but because its actions could be much swifter than others: to look for satisfaction in the offices of the department in which the nose claimed to work would be senseless because from the nose’s own words it was plain that he was a person who held nothing sacred and could just as easily have lied about that as he had lied when he swore he had never seen Kovalev before. And so Kovalev was just about to order the driver to take him to the police station when he had another thought, namely that this buffoon and charlatan, who in their first meeting had behaved in such an unscrupulous manner, might again easily, seizing the moment, slip out of town,—and then all searches might be in vain or might drag on, God forbid, for an entire month. Finally, it seemed, Providence itself enlightened him. He decided to set off straight for the newspaper office, and immediately post an advertisement with a detailed description of the nose’s every particular, such that anyone meeting him could bring him to Kovalev instantly or at least let the latter know of his whereabouts. And so, Kovalev, having made this decision, ordered the driver to the newspaper office and along the way did not leave off pounding the man’s back with his fist and repeating “Faster, scum! Faster, crook!” “Eh now, barin!”—said the driver, shaking his head and slapping the reins of his horse, which had a long coat like a lapdog’s. The droshky finally halted and Kovalev, panting, ran into the small reception room where a grey-haired clerk in an ancient frock coat and spectacles sat at a desk and, his pen between his teeth, was counting the coins he had received.
—Who is it here accepts the advertisements?—cried Kovalev.—Ah, hello!
—At your service,—said the grey-haired clerk. raising his eyes for an instant and lowering them again to the serried heaps of coins.
—I should like to print …
—To be sure. If you would be so good as to wait,—said the grey-haired clerk, with his right hand noting a figure on the paper and moving two beads of his abacus over with the fingers of his left. A footman in braided livery and an air which showed his familiarity with the aristocratic home stood next to the table holding a note, and considered appropriate to make a show of his wide experience: “Believe me, sir, when I say the dog isn’t worth eight pounds, that is, I wouldn’t give eight pence for it; but the countess loves it, by God she does,—so him that kidnapped it gets one hundred roubles! To put it proper, just as we’re talking now, people’s tastes are incompatible: well if you’re a hunter, you want to keep a hound or a poodle; then don’t blink at giving five hundred or a thousand for it, just so long as it’s a fine dog.”
The respectable clerk was listening to all this with an air of importance and was at the same time making up his estimate; how many letters were in the proposed announcement? Along the walls were standing many old ladies, merchants’ shop-men and lackeys, all with announcements. One noted that a coachman of sober deportment was seeking employment; another—a slightly used carriage, brought from Paris in 1814; there a servant girl of nineteen, experienced in laundry matters but good for other types of work, was on offer, a sturdy droshky, lacking only springs; a young spirited horse, dapple grey, seventeen years old; new seeds, received from England, for turnips and radishes; a dacha with all the conveniences; two horse-stalls and a plot on which an excellent birch or fir grove could be established; also there was a call for any interested in the purchase of old shoe-leather together with an invitation to present themselves at the exchange any day between the hours of eight and three. The room in which this company milled about was small and the air was extraordinarily close; but collegiate assessor Kovalev was not able to sense the smells because he had his kerchief to his face and his nose itself was God knows where.
—Gracious sir, if I may be so bold as to request … I am in great need,—Kovalev uttered finally, with impatience.
—Directly, directly! Two roubles forty three kopeks! This instant! One rouble sixty-four kopeks—said the grey-haired gentleman, tossing the old ladies’ and lackeys’ notices back in their faces.
—What may I do for you?—he finally said, turning to Kovalev.
I request …—said Kovalev,—there’s been a crime or a prank, as yet I have no way of knowing which. I merely wish to advertise the fact that any person who will bring the scoundrel to me will receive an appropriate reward.
—May I ask your surname?
—No, what do you need my surname for? I must not reveal it. I have such a large acquaintance: Chetyrekheva, the state counselor’s wife, Palegeya Grigorevna Podtochina, [Mrs. Undercut] the staff-officer’s wife. If they were suddenly to find out, God forbid! You may simply put: a collegiate assessor or, even better, one who holds the rank of major.
—And the runaway was your lackey?
—What lackey? That wouldn’t be such a great crime! The one who’s run away is … my nose …
—Hmmm what a strange surname! And has this Mr. Mynose robbed you of a good sum?
—My nose, that is … You’re mistaken! My nose, my very own nose has disappeared to who knows where. The Devil’s played a trick on me!
—How do you mean, it’s disappeared? There’s something here that I can’t quite grasp.
—I can’t tell you how it happened; the main thing is that it’s now riding around town and calling itself a state counselor. And therefore I ask you to announce that whoever catches it should come to me immediately, losing as little time as possible. Judge for yourself, really, how can I go on without such a prominent part of the body? It’s not anything like a little toe, where I stick the foot into my boot—and no one will see it’s not there. On Thursdays I visit Chekhtyreva the state counselor’s wife: Palageya Grigorievna Podtochina, the staff-officer’s wife, her daughter is very pretty, and has pretty friends, and judge for yourself, how could I now … I can’t appear there now.
The clerk became pensive, as signaled by his firmly compressed lips.
—No, I can’t place such an announcement in the papers,—he said at last, after a long silence.
—What? Why?
—Because. The paper might loose its reputation. If everyone were to start writing in that his nose had run off … As it is, they say we publish lots of absurdities and false rumors.
—Just how is this an absurdity? There is, I think, nothing like that in it at all.
—It seems to you there isn’t. But just last week there was a case of the same kind. An official like yourself came in here, the same as you just did, he brought in a notice, it came to two roubles 73 kopeks, and the whole of the announcement was that a poodle with a black coat had run away. You’d think—what of that? But it turned out to be a lampoon: the poodle was a bursar, can’t recall what department.
But I’m not making an announcement about a poodle, but about my own nose: so it’s almost as if it were about myself.
—No, I can’t put in an announcement like that.
—Even if my nose really has disappeared!
—If it’s disappeared, that’s a case for a doctor. They say there are people who can put on any sort of nose you want. But I have to say, by the way, that you must be a person with a merry disposition who likes to have his joke in public.
—I swear to you, as God is my witness! Well if it comes to that, I’ll show you.
—Why trouble yourself!—continued the clerk, taking a pinch of snuff.—However, if it’s no trouble,—he added with a gesture of curiosity,—then I’d like to have a look.
The collegiate assessor lowered the kerchief from his face.
—In point of fact it’s extraordinarily strange!—said the clerk,—the spot is perfectly smooth, like a pancake right out of the pan. Yes, it’s unbelievably flat!
—So are you going to argue with me any more? you can see for yourself that you can’t not print it. I’ll be especially grateful and very glad that this occurrence has given me the opportunity of making your acquaintance …—the major, as is clear from the forgoing, had decided to resort to a bit of low flattery.
—To print it, of course, is no great thing,—said the clerk, it’s just that I don’t foresee any profit for you in doing so. If you like give it to someone with a clever pen who can describe it as a rare phenomenon of nature and print the piece in The Northern Bee (at this juncture he took another pinch of snuff) for the edification of youth (here he wiped his nose) or just as is, for general interest.
The collegiate assessor was left utterly hopeless. He ran his eye down the news sheet to the theatrical notices; his face was preparing to smile when he encountered the name of an actress who was quite pretty, and his hand moved towards his pocket: did he have a blue bank-note? Because staff-officers, in Kovalev’s opinion, must sit in the stalls,—but the thought of his nose spoiled everything!
Even the clerk, it seemed, was touched by the difficult position Kovalev was in. Wanting to relieve his sorrow in some way he thought it would be appropriate to express his sympathy in a few words: “I am, truly, very distressed that you’ve experienced this sort of anecdote. Wouldn’t you like a pinch of snuff? It dispels headaches and gloomy moods: even in connection with hemorrhoids it’s helpful. Saying this the clerk offered Kovalev his snuff-box, rather cleverly flipping back the lid with its portrait of a lady wearing a hat.
This thoughtless action put an end to Kovalev’s patience. “I fail to understand how you can make jokes,” he said heatedly:—Can’t you see I don’t have the very thing I could take a pinch with? Devil take your snuff! I can’t even look at it now, and not just at your nasty Berezin, but even if you offered me real rappee. With this, deeply agitated, he left the newspaper offices and set off for the home of the constable, who was extraordinarily fond of sugar. In his home the foyer, and the dining room as well, were well-furnished with the sugar-loaves that merchants had brought to him as tokens of friendship. His cook was at that moment pulling off his official boots; the sword and all his professional armor had already been hung peaceably in the corners, his intimidating tricorne hat was in the hands of his three-year old son, and he himself, after his fierce martial service, was preparing to taste life’s pleasures.
Kovalev came upon him just as he had stretched, (wheezed/quacked) and said: “Eh, I could use a good two hour’s sleep!” One might therefore foresee that the collegiate assessor’s arrival would not be very well-timed. And I don’t know whether even if Kovalev had brought him several pounds of tea or a length of cloth he would have been received too joyfully. The constable was a great admirer of all the arts and manufactures; but he preferred a bank-note to anything. “That’s a thing,—he customarily said;—than which there is no thing better: it doesn’t get hungry, doesn’t take up much room, always fits in your pocket, and if you drop it—it won’t break.”
The constable received Kovalev rather coldly and said that after dinner was no time to pursue an investigation, that nature itself decreed that, having eaten, one should take a rest (from this the collegiate assessor could see that the constable was not unacquainted with the pronouncements of the ancient sages), that proper gentlemen didn’t get their noses torn off and that there are all kinds of majors in the world whose linen isn’t even in a respectable condition and who gad about to all sorts of indecent places.
That is to say, no glancing blow, but a facer! It must be noted that Kovalev was an extraordinarily thin-skinned person. He could forgive anything said about himself, but could never excuse anything relating to his rank or title. He even proposed that in theatrical productions one might allow anything at all concerning chief officers, but that field-rank officers must not be impugned in any way. The reception given him by the constable flustered him to such a degree that he shook his head to clear it and said with a sense of dignity: “I confess that after such insulting remarks on your part, I have nothing to add …”—and he left.
He came to his door barely able to feel his legs beneath him. It was already dusk. After all these fruitless searches his rooms seemed gloomy or even extraordinarily nasty to him. Entering the foyer he saw on the stained leather divan his servant Ivan who, lying on his back was spitting at the ceiling and hitting the same spot with considerable accuracy. Such indifference in a human being infuriated Kovalev; he struck Ivan on the forehead with his hat, saying: “You, you swine, you’re always doing something stupid.!”
Ivan hastily jumped from his position and threw himself with all his might into helping Kovalev off with coat.
Entering his bed-chamber the major, tired and gloomy, threw himself into an armchair and at last, after heaving several sighs, said:
“My God! My God! What kind of rotten luck is this? If I were missing a hand or a foot—it would still be better; if I were missing my ear—that would be vile, but still more tolerable; but a man missing his nose is—Devil knows what; neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring; just take him and throw him out the window! And let’s say it was cut off in battle or in a duel, or it was my own fault; but it just disappeared for no reason, for nothing! … But no, it can’t be,—he added after a moment’s thought.—It’s unbelievable that a nose should disappear, unbelievable in every way. This is probably either a dream or a hallucination; maybe somehow, by accident, instead of water I drank down the vodka I wipe down my bead with after I shave. That fool Ivan didn’t take it away and I got hold of it somehow.” To really convince himself that he wasn’t drunk the major gave himself such a painful pinch that he yelped. The pain absolutely convinced him that he was acting and living in the waking world. He cautiously approached the mirror and at first screwed up his eyes with the notion that maybe the nose would appear in its rightful place. But that instant he jumped back saying “What a travesty!”
This was, really, incomprehensible. If some button had been lost, a silver spoon, a watch, or some other similar thing—but to have lost this, and in his own apartment to boot! … Thinking over all the circumstances, Major Kovalev concluded that the nearest thing to the truth must be that the guilty person was none other than Madame Podtochina, who had wanted him to marry her daughter. He himself had liked flirting with the girl, had but avoided a definite engagement. When the mother told him to his face that she wanted to give him her daughter’s hand, he had slyly put her off with his compliments, saying that he was still young, that he must serve for five years so as to be exactly forty-two. And for this reason Madame Podtochina had made up her mind, probably for revenge, to ruin him, and had hired for the purpose some peasant witches, because it was impossible to suppose that the nose had been cut off in any way; no one had come into his room; the barber Ivan Yakovlevich had shaved him on Wednesday, and all Wednesday and even all Thursday his nose had been all right—that he remembered and was quite certain about; besides, he would have felt pain, and there was no doubt that the wound could not have healed so soon and been as flat as a pancake. He formed various plans in his mind: either to summon Madame Podtochina formally before the court or to go to her himself and confront her with it These reflections were interrupted by a light which gleamed through all the cracks of the door and informed him that a Ivan had lit a candle in the hall. Soon Ivan himself appeared, holding the candle before him and lighting up the whole room. Kovalev’s first movement was to snatch up his handkerchief and cover the place where yesterday his nose had been, so that his really stupid servant might not gape at the sight of anything so peculiar in his master.
Ivan had hardly time to retreat to his lair when there was the sound of an unfamiliar voice in the hall, pronouncing the words: “Does the collegiate assessor Kovalev live here?”
“Come in, Major Kovalev is here,” said Kovalev, jumping up hurriedly and opening the door.
A police officer walked in. He was of handsome appearance, with whiskers neither too fair nor too dark, and rather fat cheeks, the same officer who at the beginning of our story was standing at the end of St. Isaac’s Bridge.
“Did you lose your nose, sir?”
“That is so.”
“It is now found.”
“What are you saying?” cried Major Kovalev. He could not speak for joy. He stared at the police officer standing before him, on whose full lips and cheeks the flickering light of the candle was brightly reflected. “How?”
“By extraordinary luck: he was caught almost on the road. He had already taken his seat in the stagecoach and was intending to go to Riga, and had already taken a passport in the name of a government clerk. And the strange thing is that I myself took him for a gentleman at first, but fortunately I had my spectacles with me and I soon saw that it was a nose. I am a bit shortsighted. And if you’re standing right in front of me I only see that you have a face, but I don’t notice your nose or your beard or anything. My mother-in-law, that is my wife’s mother, doesn’t see anything either.”
Kovalev was beside himself with joy. “Where? Where? I’ll go at once.”
“Don’t disturb yourself. Knowing that you were in need of it I brought it along with me. And the strange thing is that the man who has had the most to do with the affair is a rascal of a barber on Voznesensky Avenue, who is now in our custody. For a long time I’ve suspected him of drunkenness and thieving, and only the day before yesterday he carried off a strip of buttons from a shop. Your nose is exactly as it was.” With this the police officer put his hand in his pocket and drew out the nose just as it was.
“That’s it!” Kovalev cried. “That’s certainly it You must have a cup of tea with me this evening.”
“I’d consider it a great pleasure, but I can’t possibly manage it: I have to go from here to the penitentiary…. How the price of food is going up! … At home I have my mother-in-law, that is my wife’s mother, and my children, the eldest particularly gives signs of great promise, he is a very intelligent child; but we have absolutely no means for his education …”
Kovalev took the hint and, taking from the table a red bank-note he thrust it into hand of the officer who, clicking his heels, took his leave. The next instant Kovalev heard his voice on the street, raking over the coals a stupid peasant who had driven his cart right out onto the boulevard.
For some time after the policeman’s departure the collegiate assessor remained in a state of bewilderment, and it was only a few minutes later that he was capable of feeling and understanding again: so reduced was he to stupefaction by this unexpected good fortune. He took the recovered nose carefully in his two hands, holding them together like a cup, and once more examined it attentively.
“Yes, that’s it, it’s certainly it,” said Major Kovalev. “There’s the pimple that came out on the left side yesterday.” The major almost laughed aloud with joy.
But nothing in this world is of long duration, and so his joy was not so great the next moment; and the moment after it was still less, and in the end he passed imperceptibly into his ordinary frame of mind, just as a circle on the water caused by a falling stone gradually passes away into the unbroken smoothness of the surface. Kovalev began to think, and reflected that the business was not finished yet; the nose was found, but it had to be put on, fixed in its proper place.
“And what if it won’t stick?”
Asking himself this question, the major turned pale.
With a feeling of irrepressible terror he rushed to the table and moved the mirror forward so as m not to put the nose on crooked. His hands trembled. Cautiously and gently he replaced it in its former position. Oh horror, the nose wouldn’t stick! …
He put it to his lips, slightly warmed it with his breath, and again applied it to the flat space between his two cheeks; but nothing would make the nose stick.
“Come on, come on, stick, you fool!” he said to it; but the nose felt wooden and fell on the table with a strange sound like a bottle-cork. The major’s face twisted convulsively.
“It’s not possible it won’t go back, is it?” But however often he applied it to the proper place, each attempt was as unsuccessful as the first.
He called for Ivan and sent him for the doctor who lived in the best apartment on the first floor of the same house. The doctor was a handsome man; he had magnificent pitch-black whiskers, a fresh-faced and healthy wife, he ate fresh apples in the morning, and kept his mouth extraordinarily clean, rinsing it out for nearly three-quarters of an hour every morning and cleaning his teeth with five different sorts of brushes. The doctor appeared immediately. Asking Major Kovalev how long ago the trouble had occurred, he took him by the chin and with his thumb gave him a flip on the spot where the nose had been, making the major jerk back his head so abruptly that he knocked the back of it against the wall. The doctor said that was nothing to worry about, and, advising Kovalev to move a little away from the wall, he told him to tilt his head: first to the right, and feeling the place where the nose had been, the doctor said, “Hmm!” Then he told Kovalev to tilt his head to the left side and again said “Hmm!” And in conclusion he gave him another flip with his thumb, so that Major Kovalev threw up his head like a horse when his teeth are being looked at. After making this experiment the doctor shook his head and said:
“No, it’s impossible. You’d better stay as you are, or it might get much worse. Of course, it could be stuck on; I could stick it on for you at once, if you like; but I assure you it would be worse for you.”
“That’s a nice thing to say! How can I stay without my nose?” said Kovalev. “Things can’t possibly be worse than they are now. This whole affair is Devil knows what! Where can I show myself with this caricature of a face? I have a good circle of acquaintances. Today, for instance, I ought to be at two evening parties. I know a great many people; Chekhtyreva, the wife of the state councilor, Podtochina, the staff-officer’s wife … though after the way she’s behaved, I won’t have anything more to do with her except through the police. Do me a favor,” Kovalev went on in a pleading voice; “isn’t there any way? … Even if it’s not perfect, just as long as it would stay on; I could even hold it steady with my hand at risky moments. I wouldn’t dance in any case, because I might hurt it without meaning to. As for remuneration for your services, you may be assured that as far as my means allow …”
“Believe me,” said the doctor, in a voice neither loud nor low but persuasive and magnetic, “that I never work from mercenary motives. That is opposed to my principles and my calling. It’s true I do accept a fee for my visits, but that’s simply to avoid wounding my patients by refusing it. Of course I could replace your nose; but I assure you on my honor, since you do not believe my word, that it will be much worse for you. You’d better wait for the action of nature itself. Wash the spot frequently with cold water, and I assure you that even without a nose you’ll be just as healthy as with one. And I advise you to put the nose in a bottle, in spirits or, better still, put two tablespoonfuls of strong vodka on it, and distilled vinegar—and then you might get quite a sum of money for it. I’d even take it myself, if you don’t ask too much for.”
“No, no, I wouldn’t sell it for anything,” Major Kovalev cried in despair; “I’d rather lose it altogether!”
“Excuse me!” said the doctor, bowing himself out, “I was trying to be of use to you…. Well, there’s nothing I can do! Anyway, you see that I’ve done my best.”
Saying this the doctor walked out of the room with a majestic air. Kovalev had not noticed his face, and, almost unconscious, had seen nothing but the cuffs of his immaculate white shirt peeping out from the sleeves of his black tail coat.
Next day he decided, before lodging a complaint with the police, to write to Madame Podtochina to see whether she would consent, without argument, to compensate him appropriately. The letter was as follows:
Most gracious Madam,
ALEXANDRA GRIGORIEVNA!
I cannot understand this strange conduct on your part. You may rest assured that you will gain nothing by what you have done, and you will in no way force me to marry your daughter. Believe me that the business with my nose is perfectly clear to me, as is the fact that you and only you are the person chiefly responsible. The sudden parting of the same from its natural position, its flight and its masquerading at one time as a government clerk and finally in its own shape, is nothing else than the consequence of the sorceries engaged in by you or by those who are versed in the same honorable arts as you are. For my part I consider it my duty to warn you that if the above-mentioned nose is not in its proper place today, I shall be obliged to resort to the assistance and protection of the law.
I have, however, with complete respect to you, the honor to be
Your respectful servant,
PLATON KOVALEV
Most gracious Sir,
PLATON KUZMICH!
Your letter greatly astonished me. I must frankly confess that I did not expect it, especially in regard to your unjust reproaches. I assure you I have never received the government clerk of whom you speak in my house, neither in masquerade nor in his own attire. It is true that Filipp Ivanovich Potanchikov has been to see me, and although, indeed, he is asking me for my daughter’s hand and is a well-conducted, sober man of great learning, I have never encouraged his hopes. You also make some reference to your nose. If you wish me to understand by that that you imagine that I’ve been thumbing my nose at you, that is, giving you a formal refusal, I am surprised that you should speak of such a thing when, as you know perfectly well, I was quite of the opposite way of thinking, and if you are courting my daughter with a view to lawful matrimony I am ready to satisfy you immediately, seeing that has always been the object of my keenest desires, in the hopes of which I remain always ready to be of service to you.
ALEXANDRA PODTOCHINA
“No,” said Kovalev to himself after reading the letter, “she’s really not guilty. It’s impossible. This letter is written in a way that no one guilty of a crime could write.” The collegiate assessor was an expert on this subject, as he had been sent several times to the Caucasus to conduct investigations. “In what way, by what fate, has this happened? Only the devil could understand it!” he said at last, throwing up his hands.
Meanwhile the rumors of this strange occurrence were spreading all over the town, and of course, not without special additions. At just that time everyone was particularly interested in the marvelous: experiments in the influence of magnetism had been attracting public attention only recently. Moreover the story of the dancing chair in Koniushennaia [Horse] Street was still fresh, and so it’s not surprising that people were soon beginning to say that the nose of a collegiate assessor called Kovalev went walking along Nevsky Prospect at exactly three in the afternoon. Numbers of inquisitive people flocked there every day. Somebody said that the nose was in Yunker’s shop—and near Yunker’s there was such a crowd and such a crush that the police were actually obliged to intervene. One speculator, a man of dignified appearance with whiskers, who used to sell all sorts of cakes and tarts at the doors of the theaters, purposely constructed some very strong wooden benches which he offered to the curious to stand on for eighty kopeks each. One very worthy colonel left home earlier on account of it, and with a great deal of trouble made his way through the crowd; but to his great indignation, instead of the nose, he saw in the shop windows the usual woolen undershirt and lithograph depicting a girl pulling up her stocking while a foppish young man, with a cutaway waistcoat and a small beard, peeps at her from behind a tree; a picture which had been hanging in the same place for more than ten years. As he walked away he said with vexation: “How can people be led astray by such stupid and incredible stories!” Then the rumor spread that it was not on Nevsky Prospect but in Tavrichersky Park that Major Kovalev’s nose took its walks; that it had been there for a long time; that even when Khozrev-Mirza had lived there he had been greatly surprised at this strange freak of nature. Several students from the Academy of Surgery made their way to the park. One worthy lady of high rank wrote a letter to the superintendent of the park asking him to show her children this rare phenomenon with, if possible, an explanation that would be edifying and instructive for the young.
All the gentlemen who invariably attend social gatherings and like to amuse the ladies were extremely thankful for all these events, since their stock of anecdotes had been completely exhausted. A small group of worthy and well-intentioned persons were greatly displeased. One gentleman said with indignation that he could not understand how in the present enlightened age people could spread abroad these absurd stories, and that he was surprised that the government took no notice of it. This gentleman, as may be seen, belonged to the number of those who would like the government to meddle in everything, even in their daily quarrels with their wives.
After this … but here again the whole adventure is lost in fog, and what happened afterward is absolutely unknown.
3.
Perfect absurdities do happen in the world. Sometimes there’s not the slightest verisimilitude to it: all at once the very nose which had been driving about the place in the shape of a civil councilor and had made such a stir in the town, turned up again as though nothing had happened, in its proper place, that is, right between the two cheeks of Major Kovalev. This happened on the seventh of April. Waking up and casually glancing into the mirror, he saw—his nose! He puts up his hand—actually his nose! “Aha!” said Kovalev, and in his joy he almost danced a jig barefoot about his room; but the entrance of Ivan stopped him. He ordered Ivan to bring him water at once, and as he washed he glanced once more into the mirror—the nose! As he wiped himself with the towel he glanced into the mirror—the nose!
“Look, Ivan, I think I have a pimple on my nose,” he said, while he thought: “How horrible it will be if Ivan says, ‘No, indeed, sir, there’s no pimple and, indeed, there is no nose either!’”
But Ivan said: “There’s nothing, there’s no pimple: your nose is quite clear!”
“Damn it, that’s wonderful!” the major said to himself, and he snapped his fingers. At that moment Ivan Yakovlevich the barber peeped in at the door, but as timidly as a cat who’s just been beaten for stealing the bacon.
“Tell me first: are your hands clean?” Kovalev shouted to him while he was still some way off.
“Yes.”
“You’re lying!”
“My right hand to God, they’re clean, sir.”
“Well, be careful.”
Kovalev sat down. Ivan Yakovlevich covered him up with a towel, and in one instant with the aid of his brushes had smothered the whole of his beard and part of his cheek in the kind of crème they serve at merchants’ name-day parties. “Would you look at that!” Ivan Yakovlevich said to himself, glancing at the nose and then turning his customer’s head to the other side and looking at it from that angle. “Really makes you wonder.” He went on pondering, and for a long while he gazed at the nose. At last, delicately, with a quite understandable caution, he raised two fingers to take it by the tip. This was Ivan Yakovlevich’s system.
“Now, now, now, careful!” cried Kovalev. Ivan Yakovlevich let his hands drop, and was flustered and confused as he had never been confused before. At last he began gently tickling him with the razor under his beard, and, although it was awkward and not at all easy for him to shave without holding on to the olfactory portion of the face, at last he did somehow, pressing his rough thumb into Kovalev’s cheek and lower jaw, overcome all difficulties, and finish shaving him.
When it was all over, Kovalev dressed hurriedly, hailed a cab, and drove to a cafe. Before he was inside the door he shouted: “Waiter, a cup of chocolate!” and at the same instant peeped at himself in the mirror. The nose was there. He turned around gaily and, with a satirical air, slightly screwing up his eyes, looked at two military men, one of whom had a nose hardly bigger than a vest button. After that he started off for the office of the department in which he was urging his claims to a post as vice-governor or, failing that, the post of an executive clerk. Crossing the reception room he glanced at the mirror; the nose was there. Then he drove to see another collegiate assessor or major, who was very fond of making fun of people, and to whom he often said in reply to various biting observations: “Ah, you! I know you, you’re as sharp as a pin!” On the way he thought: “If the major doesn’t split with laughter when he sees me, then it’s a sure sign that everything is in its place.” But the sarcastic collegiate assessor said nothing. “Good, good, damn it all!” Kovalev thought to himself. On the way he met Podtochina, the officer’s wife, and her daughter; he was profuse in his bows to them and was greeted with exclamations of delight—so there could be nothing wrong with him, he thought. He conversed with them for a long time and, taking out his snuffbox, purposely put a pinch to each nostril while he said to himself: “So much for you, you silly petticoats, you biddies! but I’m not going to marry your daughter anyway. This is only par amour!”
And from that time forth Major Kovalev promenaded about as though nothing had happened, on Nevsky Prospect, and at the theaters, and everywhere. And the nose, too, as though nothing had happened, sat on his face without even a sign of coming off at the sides. And after this Major Kovalev was always seen in a good humor, smiling, resolutely pursuing all the pretty ladies, and even on one occasion stopping before a shop in Gostiny Court and buying the ribbon of some order, I cannot say for what purpose, since he was not himself a cavalier of any order.
And this kind of thing took place in the northern capital of our vast land! Only now, taking everything under consideration, we can see that much of it is implausible. Saying nothing of the fact that the supernatural separation of the nose and its appearance in various locales in the guise of a state councilor is truly odd,—how was it that Kovalev failed to realize one can’t advertise for a nose in the newspaper? I don’t mean to say here that I feel an announcement is too expensive: that’s nonsense, and I’m not the mercenary sort. But it’s inappropriate, clumsy, bad form! And then again—how did the nose end up in a fresh-baked roll, and how did Ivan Yakovlevich himself? … that I can in no way understand, I positively cannot. But what’s stranger and more incomprehensible than anything else is how authors can choose such subjects. I concede that it’s absolutely incomprehensible, it’s truly … no, no, I absolutely don’t understand. In the first place it’s decidedly no use whatever to the fatherland; in the second place … but in the second place there’s no use either. I simply don’t know what to make of it …
But all the same, taking everything into account, although, of course, one might assume both one thing and another, and even another, perhaps even … well and then where don’t absurdities occur? But still and all the same, when you stop and think, there’s something to all this. No matter what anyone says, such things do happen in the world: rarely, but they do happen.
(1835-6) Translated by A.L. and M.T.K.